Elon Musk would like you to think he is invincible right now. But the world’s richest man is actually extremely vulnerable to public pressure at the moment — public pressure that federal workers and their unions can take advantage of.
Who can stop Elon Musk? Even though it’s illegal for him to seize control of federal agency finances to slash the workforce, a Republican congress is unlikely to assert its legally mandated prerogatives. Nor has any serious opposition emerged from the Democratic Party. And while the courts have paused some of this power grab, there’s no guarantee that our hyperconservative Supreme Court will seriously oppose it. Moreover, Musk’s wrecking crew can impose a huge number of cuts while legal proceedings wind their way through the courts.
But all is not lost: Musk is actually very vulnerable to popular backlash. As Jonathan Martin of Politico points out, Donald Trump is likely to throw Musk’s project to the wolves once it starts generating too much bad press. If the broad left can turn the tide of popular opinion squarely against Musk’s “Department of Government Efficiency” (DOGE), it’s likely to meet the same fate as the administration’s unpopular funding freeze.
Escaping this crisis will depend, above all, on the actions of federal workers.
No matter which lackeys Trump and Musk install at the top of these agencies, they still ultimately depend on the labor of their employees. And workers’ resistance has already put a wrench in Musk’s operations. Refusing to succumb to intimidation, unions of federal employees have sued to stop Musk. And with union encouragement, most federal workers have rejected DOGE’s so-called buyout scheme through which they would “voluntarily” resign.
These are important first steps. But it’s going to take a lot more organizing and pressure from these workers to win.
Changing the Narrative
Wide-scale, attention-grabbing collective actions can drive home to the public the truth about federal workers and the danger of Musk’s cuts. Far too many people don’t know crucially important facts about federal employees and the services they provide:
— Due to Trump’s budget chaos, health clinics across the United States have already been forced to close.
— Musk’s reckless operation threatens enormous numbers of Americans. Without federal workers at sufficiently funded agencies, no one in the United States would be able to receive benefits such as Social Security, Medicare, Medicaid, or workplace safety protections, among many other essential services. Local schools and hospitals across the country also depend on federal funding.
— Contrary to right-wing claims about a massively expanded federal bureaucracy, the percentage of the American workforce working for the federal government has declined significantly over the past twenty-five years.
— Billionaires, not federal employees, are hoarding America’s wealth: total yearly pay for all 2.3 million civilian federal employees ($271 billion) is significantly less than Musk’s personal net worth of $412 billion.
— Most federal workers are not rich bureaucrats: 43 percent of federal workers make less than $90,000 yearly, and 58.8 percent make less than $110,000 yearly.
— About 60 percent of the budget for paying federal employees goes to the Department of Defense, the Department of Veterans Affairs, and the Department of Homeland Security.
— This impacts the whole country: over 80 percent of federal employees work in regions other than Washington D.C.
Lessons From the Red State Revolt
How can federal workers win over the public and defeat these attacks on their jobs and essential services? Their best bet is to replicate the tactics that made possible the successful 2018 teachers’ strikes in West Virginia, Oklahoma, Arizona, and beyond.
Through these actions, public sector workers beat back right-wing attacks on their profession and won major pay and student funding that affected millions, even though they took place in Republican-controlled states where unions were weak and public sector strikes illegal. Here are the main lessons of their strikes:
- Overcome scare tactics by speaking out. Fearing retaliation from above, most teachers in 2018 were initially scared to make their voices heard. But a few bold colleagues broke the climate of intimidation by taking a public stand early on. Nobody was fired or disciplined. Their early courage created space for countless more to speak out.
- Escalate your actions. Especially because so many workers were initially scared, the movements grew by taking easy actions that could involve the largest number of workers. One prominent build-up tactic was “RedforEd” days in which everybody — both employees and community supporters — wore the same color and posted selfies and group photos with messages about their cause. This generated a huge amount of momentum and showed the community the human face of a demonized and demeaned workforce.
- Try to go viral. The red state strikes were initiated and coordinated largely over viral Facebook groups. Worker activists grabbed people’s attention through public actions and catchy digital content, and they immediately onboarded their coworkers into organizing similar actions via digital tools. In person and local organizing was still crucial, but these movements needed digital tools and a big social media presence to win (and coordinate) at scale.
- Persuade (and involve) the community. To seize the attention of the public and dispel narratives about “privileged, lazy public sector workers,” these movements understood that the only way for them to win big was by consistently emphasizing how their work — and their demands — benefited the larger community. And they consistently sought to involve community members in their RedforEd days and other escalating actions.
- Don’t wait for top union leaders. Though unions ended up playing a crucial role in these movements, the spark and drive came from self-organized rank-and-file workers. Most top union leaders were too stuck in legalistic routines to take a lead on risky actions. But once momentum exploded from below, unions jumped on board and played a key role in helping workers win.
- Get disruptive if necessary. Nobody wants to strike, especially when doing so could negatively impact community members. But since Republican legislators continued to refuse to back down, ultimately educators felt they had to walk out to save their schools. And with overwhelming popular support, they won big.
Battles Ahead
Obviously, conditions today aren’t identical to 2018. The stakes are now higher: democracy and the existence of essential nationwide services are on the line. The fear factor is also currently higher, though this could change quickly once more workers start speaking out — after all, it is MAGA cronies who are breaking the law, not federal employees. It’s possible that a broad and loud enough worker-public outcry could force Musk and Trump to retreat.
But one key similarity remains: huge numbers of rank-and-file workers and community members are going to have to start speaking out.
The Federal Unionists Network has called a Save Our Services Day of Action on February 19 to bring together federal workers and their supporters to speak out against Musk’s coup. Everybody can join in. Like the RedforEd days of 2018, the main ask on February 19 is simple: wear red, white, and/or blue and take a selfie with a sign explaining (if you’re a federal worker) how your work impacts and benefits Americans and (if you’re a community member) how you benefit from federal services.
Musk’s wrecking crew operation is moving fast, hoping to impose its draconian scheme before federal workers and the millions of Americans who oppose their agenda have time to respond. But if large numbers of federal workers and their allies start taking a stand over the coming days, they can deliver a serious blow to Trumpism and protect the essential services upon which all Americans depend.