Change the NARRATIVE

  

Eric Blanc

Labor Politics 

 

On BlueSky

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 US 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 US 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 all 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 25 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 Elon Musk’s personal net worth of $412 billion.

— Most federal workers are not rich bureaucrats: 43% of federal workers make less than $90,000 yearly, and 58.8% make less than $110,000 yearly.

— About 60% 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% 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.