People rally at Health and Human Services headquarters to protest the polices of President Donald Trump and Elon Musk Wednesday, Feb. 19, 2025, in Washington. (AP Photo/John McDonnell)
Hundreds of thousands of federal workers live or work in Virginia.
President Donald Trump continued his attack on federal workers on Thursday with an executive order to end collective bargaining with unions representing federal workers involved with national security work.
“The President needs a responsive and accountable civil service to protect our national security,” according to a fact sheet released by the White House.
About 144,000 federal workers are employed in Virginia and plenty more live here to commute into Washington, DC. Pro-worker leaders in Virginia immediately denounced the order as yet another attack on workers.
Virginia US representatives Bobby Scott and Gerry Connolly said in a joint statement the order was another example of President Donald Trump’s and Elon Musk’s “war on working people.”
“These two billionaires busted unions in their day jobs and now they’re bringing these same attacks to our government in the biggest presidential attack on unions in history,” Scott and Connolly said in their statement.
The American Federation of Government Employees (AFGE) said in a statement the order “is a disgraceful and retaliatory attack” on federal workers, many of whom are veterans. AFGE has filed lawsuits against the Trump administration to challenge the mass firings of recently-hired federal workers.
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