The Federal Unionists Community is the primary large-scale community for presidency employees, and so they’re constructing solidarity throughout departments and the labor motion.
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Chris Dols, founding member of FUN, addresses the group through the Might Day rally at Foley Sq. in New York Metropolis on Might 1, 2025.
(Phoebe Grandi)
New York Metropolis—On Might 1, at 5 pm, round 30 federal employees gathered in a nook of Foley Sq. in Manhattan. Jammed between shiny blue Resort & Gaming Trades Council indicators and Federal Plaza, members of the Federal Unionists Community (FUN) handed out indicators with Environmental Safety Company (EPA), Shopper Monetary Safety Bureau (CFPB), and Nationwide Treasury Workers Union logos, imagery, and associated slogans on them. Passersby stopped to giggle at indicators that includes a photograph of Russell Vought, the director of the US Workplace of Administration and Funds who halted most of CFPB’s operations earlier this yr, with satan horns.
Over the subsequent half hour, 1000’s extra protesters flowed into the Decrease Manhattan plaza. In all, greater than 15,000 folks waited in anticipation for the Might Day protest to begin. It wasn’t FUN’s first rally in New York Metropolis—the community has been organizing weekly demonstrations a block away—however it was their first Might Day rally.
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FUN is organizing federal employees and constructing solidarity with different labor teams with the intention to save their jobs and the work they do for the general public. It’s a combat that FUN founding member Chris Dols, a neighborhood member of the Worldwide Federation of Skilled and Technical Engineers (IFPTE) who works within the US Military Corp of Engineering, stated was within the spirit of Might Day. “We have now a possibility to remind the remainder of the working class that we’ve got Might Day. It represents the very best of American labor, its historical past, and its capability, not only for combating, but in addition for successful,” Dols stated. “As federal employees, (we’re) standing up and catalyzing a brand new labor motion alongside the protection of the general public sphere that (the Trump administration is) after. And it’s not each lifetime you’re ready to do this.”
The primary iteration of FUN began in 2019, as a small and casual circle of federal employees, and it quickly morphed right into a Whatsapp group organizing opposition to the 2019 authorities shutdown, It was referred to as the Federal Staff Coalition and consisted largely of IFPTE, American Federation of Authorities Workers (AFGE), and Nationwide Labor Relations Board members. The Federal Staff Coalition didn’t actually dwell previous the shutdown, however employees revived it through the Biden presidency, after Dols stated he realized in 2022, “If we’re not able to combat for our rights with a comparatively pleasant administration, what’s it gonna be like the subsequent time a Republican is in workplace?” He and others from the Federal Staff Coalition began organizing as FUN, with actions like circulating an open letter pressuring Senator Chuck Schumer to substantiate Joe Biden’s nominees to steer the Federal Labor Relations Authority.
A lot of that point was spent making ready for what would grow to be the subsequent Trump presidency. “FUN was very a lot organized with the intent of getting the forces in place able to waging an actual combat again,” the subsequent time a labor-hostile president got here to energy.
FUN is the primary large-scale community for federal employees, who should not have a robust historical past of solidarity. As Dols famous, “The federal union motion doesn’t have a convention of working collectively,” however given the assaults the employees are going through, there is no such thing as a motive for “being sectoral anymore.”
This yr’s Might Day additionally occurred to mark the a centesimal day of the second Trump administration, which by way of a mix of layoffs, buyouts, and firings, has prompted 275,240 federal employees to go away their jobs. Trump additionally signed an government order in March taking away many federal employees’ proper to arrange. This irony was not misplaced on the activists and politicians whose speeches commenced the protest.
The audio system, which included Dols and Consultant Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, harped on the significance of unity within the face of the Trump administration. “My LinkedIn community isn’t going to save lots of us,” Dr. Roona Ray, a member of the Physicians for Nationwide Well being Program, stated to the cheering crowd. “The networks we really want are in actual life like this large gathering.”
After the speeches ended, the unions started to funnel up Broadway towards Battery Park. “Russell Vought informed us that he desires us to be traumatized, and to be sincere, there’s numerous federal employees who’re traumatized,” Mike, an AFGE member and EPA speechwriter, informed us. “They’re very scared to point out their face at capabilities that FUN is placing on. However it’s attending to go to those issues; it’s a pleasant indication that there’s this broader motion.”
Whereas Mike was partially speaking concerning the group’s participation within the Might Day protest, he was additionally referring to the weekly rallies outdoors Manhattan’s federal buildings. “It may be something from 30 to 40 folks to 200 folks,” stated AFGE member and EPA legal professional Suzy. “We simply need to guarantee that we’re ever current, that we’re persevering with to work this muscle.”
Each Suzy and Mike heard of FUN by way of involvement with their native union and seeing the weekly pickets that occur outdoors of their workplace constructing. They’re among the many EPA employees who’ve discovered themselves turning into more and more concerned in FUN. “My job looks like my dream job, and that’s one thing I’ve observed quite a bit on the company. Folks received’t actually wind up right here accidentally,” stated Mike. “Every regulation that the EPA has is type of written within the blood of people that have suffered by the hands of unregulated {industry}.”
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Considerations over rollbacks in rules are driving EPA employees to affix union efforts like FUN. “My job feels very protected numerous the time, as a result of who doesn’t need hazardous waste to be regulated correctly, proper?” stated Suzy. “However after we’re regulating {industry} and the administrator has proven himself to be very pro-industry, you may’t assist however assume, is my job going to be impacted?”
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After Trump’s election and the unleashing of DOGE, FUN’s membership exploded. And when Trump introduced that he was ending collective bargaining through an government order in March, the group ramped up its actions. FUN has 1,000 energetic members nationally alongside 16,000 individuals who have reached out to assist with organizing, and is seeking to develop, stated Drew Curtis, one other FUN chief who’s a member of AFGE Native 3911 and works for the EPA’s environmental justice workplace.
Curtis was a longtime neighborhood organizer earlier than he started working for the EPA. “There are lots of totally different variations of what you see right here, native networks of federal employees,” Curtis stated. He listed examples of metropolitan areas throughout the nation which have FUN chapters: “Boston, Baltimore, upstate New York, across the capital district, Boise space. We’re seeking to develop it in additional locations too, rural communities within the South.” Dols added {that a} FUN group in Boone, North Carolina had an occasion with a 1,500 individual turnout. “We had been with one of many federal employees who works in one of many parks over there (in North Carolina) final weekend, and he was telling us, that’s the greatest factor they’ve ever had.”
In a rousing speech to FUN members at a gathering previous to the march, Dols identified that the primary union to combat for a 10-hour work day was a federal union, and now, federal employees are the primary unions below assault by the Trump administration. That’s one among FUN’s most important messages: Federal employees are first, however what hurts them will hurt on a regular basis folks subsequent.
“Nevertheless a lot they rhetorically assault federal employees as lazy bureaucrats, the deep state, all that stuff like, that’s simply political justification,” stated Dols concerning the right-wing’s try to intestine the labor motion. “However the actual factor is, they need to privatize the massive sections of the federal service. They need to take Social Safety. They need to take these big areas of providers that they’ll privatize.”
Being concerned with FUN is a morale booster—it’s, effectively, enjoyable, stated Curtis. “If I wasn’t doing this, I might simply be feeling depressed and type of need to surrender… It’s the truth that we’re coming collectively to combat as federal employees, but in addition with our allies too.”
Suzy stated she shared his emotions: “In a second the place we’re being made to really feel remoted and undesirable by the general public and all of those various things, it has offered us an outlet to get plugged into.”
She stated she hoped that different unions had been listening to the group’s message: “We’re attempting to ring the alarm for our non-public union companions on a regular basis.… Federal employees are probably the most susceptible, as a result of they’ve probably the most management over us. And we type of really feel like a canary in a coal mine.”
On Might Day, because the group drew nearer to Battery Park, a member of the group shouted right into a megaphone: “Federal employees, we’re veering off right here!”
Inside a monetary district workplace constructing, FUN members attended a Might Day after-party sponsored by the United Lecturers Federation (UFT). The occasion, hosted in honor of federal employees, introduced collectively UFT and FUN members alongside different Might Day members to listen to speeches and tales from federal employees. “That’s the type of solidarity (we’d like),” Dols stated. “It’s just the start, I hope, of a relationship with them and with different unions.”
Elsie Carson-Holt
Elsie Carson-Holt is a journalist primarily based in Brooklyn. Her work has appeared in The Boston Globe, FAIR, and LGBTQ Nation, amongst different locations.
Phoebe Grandi
Phoebe Grandi is a journalist presently primarily based in Brooklyn. She can also be the publishing intern at The Nation.
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