Unionized postal and federal workers are facing an unprecedented attack under the Trump administration, as efforts to weaken labor protections intensify. Following reports that President Donald Trump is considering an executive order to dissolve the independent leadership of the United States Postal Service (USPS) and place it under the control of the Department of Commerce, labor advocates are warning that this could be a significant step toward privatization and the cancellation of union contracts.
Meanwhile, the administration has also moved to strip collective bargaining rights from Transportation Security Administration (TSA) security officers, further escalating tensions between federal workers and the White House. The moves have been met with fierce resistance from unions, labor leaders, and rank-and-file workers, who say they are preparing for a major fight to protect their rights and the future of public-sector jobs.
The Washington Post reported on February 20 that Trump was on the verge of issuing an executive order that would dissolve USPS’s independent status and transfer control of the agency to the Department of Commerce. The department is currently led by Howard Lutnick, a Wall Street banker and outspoken advocate for privatization. Trump confirmed the next day that he was “looking at” the plan, which could have sweeping consequences for postal workers and the broader labor movement.
One of the most immediate concerns is that reclassifying USPS as part of the executive branch could provide the administration with legal justification to cancel existing union contracts. This would leave over 500,000 postal workers—including members of the National Association of Letter Carriers (NALC) and the American Postal Workers Union (APWU)—without collective bargaining protections.
“A postal worker has a union that negotiates with the Postal Service that betters their life,” said Mike Bates, president of the Des Moines APWU local. “A federal worker is pretty much dictated to, what they are going to get from the government.”
The move is widely viewed as a step toward full privatization, a long-held goal of Wall Street interests eager to profit from the Postal Service’s vast infrastructure and real estate assets. A leaked Wells Fargo memo outlined the financial incentives behind dismantling USPS, suggesting that eliminating postal jobs, raising postage rates by as much as 140 percent, and selling off post office buildings could generate significant profits for private investors.
Postmaster General Louis DeJoy, a controversial Trump appointee and longtime supporter of USPS privatization, abruptly announced his resignation just days before the executive order was reported. The USPS Board of Governors held an emergency meeting and retained its own legal counsel to push back against the administration’s plan.
Postal unions have responded forcefully to the threat, with the NALC and APWU organizing joint rallies to oppose the restructuring plan. APWU President Mark Dimondstein called the attack “outrageous, unlawful” and “part of the billionaire oligarch coup.”
“These are not idle threats,” said Seattle letter carrier Virgilio Goze, sergeant-at-arms of NALC Branch 79. “Trump might be fickle, but the people around him are not. They’re outright privatizers, and they will do illegal stuff.”
Rank-and-file workers are also organizing independently of their national union leadership. The Build a Fighting NALC (BFN) caucus has been growing in influence, particularly after postal workers overwhelmingly rejected a tentative contract agreement in January. Many workers are skeptical that securing a new contract will protect them from Trump’s broader attacks.
“There’s no reason why, even if we got a contract next week, that Trump wouldn’t come in and try to cancel it or change it, like he’s hinted at,” said Tyler Vasseur, a letter carrier in Minneapolis and a leader in BFN.
The attack on unionized postal workers comes as the Trump administration simultaneously moves to eliminate collective bargaining rights for TSA officers. On March 8, the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) announced that it was rescinding union rights for 47,000 TSA security officers, claiming that collective bargaining “constrained” the agency’s ability to protect transportation systems.
Labor leaders quickly condemned the move.
“Forty-seven thousand transportation security officers show up at over 400 airports across the country every single day to make sure our skies are safe for air travel,” said Everett Kelley, national president of the American Federation of Government Employees (AFGE). “Many of them are veterans who went from serving their country in the armed forces to wearing a second uniform protecting the homeland and ensuring another terrorist attack like September 11 never happens again.”
AFL-CIO President Liz Shuler called the move “dangerous union-busting ripped from the pages of Project 2025,” referring to a right-wing policy blueprint that includes dismantling federal worker protections.
Beyond USPS and TSA, federal workers across multiple agencies are already facing mass layoffs under the so-called Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE), overseen by billionaire Elon Musk. Under Musk’s leadership, tens of thousands of federal workers have been fired, and agencies have been restructured in ways that critics say are designed to weaken government institutions.
Many postal workers fear that if USPS is placed under Commerce Department control, it will suffer the same fate as other federal agencies subjected to DOGE’s restructuring.
“They’re going to come after our benefits, our wages,” said Goze. “Our working conditions are already bad, but they’re going to get worse. They’ll turn us into Amazon—they want us to be timed at everything we do.”
Unions are preparing legal challenges to block Trump’s executive orders, but there is uncertainty about how effective these efforts will be. While some lawmakers have voiced opposition, Republican control of Congress makes it unlikely that legislative action will stop the administration’s efforts.
The privatization push also faces public resistance, as USPS remains one of the most widely supported government institutions. Rural communities, which depend heavily on postal services, could be particularly impacted by potential service cuts.
With tensions escalating, some union members are openly discussing the possibility of a strike. Although it is illegal for postal workers to strike under federal law, the 1970 postal workers’ strike—one of the largest wildcat strikes in U.S. history—demonstrated the power of collective action in forcing government concessions.
BFN is calling for mass meetings to discuss potential collective actions, and some activists believe a federal worker strike could be necessary.
“A general strike of all federal workers and postal workers would show the country what’s going to happen if they dismantle everything,” said Bates.
However, the specter of President Ronald Reagan’s 1981 mass firing of striking air traffic controllers looms large. Reagan’s crackdown on the Professional Air Traffic Controllers Organization (PATCO) dealt a devastating blow to the labor movement, and some union leaders worry about the risks of direct action under Trump.
“PATCO is always brought up as a sort of gotcha,” said Vasseur. “Yes, there’s a huge potential for this to be our PATCO moment. But I think we can win this time, because what happened was the air traffic controllers were fired and the labor movement backed down. The way to fight back would have been the rest of the public sector and then calling on the private sector to come out in defense of workers.”
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