Furloughed and mostly unpaid, federal workers took to the streets on Saturday.Courtesy of Federal Unionists Network
“Fed Up Fed!” one protest sign in Oakland, California, proclaimed. Across the nation, in DC, other “No Kings” protesters lofted signs reading “Furloughed And Fired Up” and “Stop Using Federal Workers As Pawns.” An estimated 4 million to 6 million people hit the streets of US cities and towns on Saturday to protest the Trump administration’s actions, and though not all of the federal employees among them were advertising their particular vantage point, they were well represented.
“I think federal workers are more aware right now than maybe other people are of how our democracy is being undermined, because we’re on the front line of a lot of the things that are happening,” said Natalie, a Veterans Affairs employee who was attending the Oakland protest.
Plenty of civil servants participated in the earlier No Kings actions back in June, but current and former federal workers now have even more reason—and time—to mobilize. The government is almost three weeks into a shutdown during which the administration has committed possible ethics violations, threatened to withhold back pay selectively, and have fired even more government employees without reasonable cause.
“When they come for one of us, they come for all of us. We stand with them.”
Those who have already lost their jobs in the administration’s DOGE-fueled mass firings and coercive buyouts were not scarce at Saturday’s protests. “I keep running into people I know. I’d guess every former fed is here,” said a former federal employee who was doing crowd control in DC as a volunteer, and with whom I communicated remotely.
There has been a surge in organizing among federal employees since Donald Trump began his second White House stint: Union membership has sharply increased among remaining federal workers. In response to the administration trying to strip many agencies of their union rights, the unions have—in addition to filing lawsuits—increased involvement in civil demonstrations like No Kings.
The unions have sponsored No Kings protests in many cities and encouraged their members to attend. Natalie, the Veterans Affairs worker I spoke with, wore a shirt with the logo of the Federal Unionist Network, an umbrella organization of unionized government workers that has grown rapidly in the past year.
These organizations, and public protest events, provide important avenues for federal workers to express their grievances, as many are reticent to speak out for fear of retaliation. (Almost every current or former federal worker I talked to on Saturday asked for some degree of anonymity.) “The fear of retaliation is by design,” Jonathan Knapp, a local government attorney, told me the day before the No Kings protest. “As public sector workers, a lot of us take oaths to defend the Constitution, and the First Amendment is a critical part of that.”
Knapp is a member of IFPTE Local 21, a union that represents public servants in the Bay Area and was a co-sponsor of the Oakland protest. Many Local 21 members, like Knapp, are employees of state, county, or city governments, and saw Saturdays action as a moment to show solidarity with the federal workforce. “When they come for one of us, they come for all of us. We stand with them,” he said. “It impacts all of us that the federal administration denigrates what we do.”
Russell Vought, Trump’s Office of Management and Budget chief and mass-firings architect who famously promised to put federal workers “in trauma,” has followed through on that vow. He also said: “When they wake up in the morning, we want them to not want to go to work because they are increasingly viewed as the villains.”
But at Saturday’s protests, the marchers clearly had those workers’ backs. Signs proclaimed, “We Support Federal Workers” and “Fund Science.” Some featured the Forest Service icon Smokey Bear saying, “Only You Can Fight Fascism.” DC protestors unfurled a giant banner representing the Constitution, the very document federal workers are sworn to uphold.
“I took an oath to protect and defend the Constitution,” Sarah, a federal archivist who showed up at the Oakland march in a rat costume, told one of my Mother Jones colleagues. “And that is exactly what I’m doing here today, and I love this country.”
