Federal workers are on the frontlines pushing back against chaos stirred up by the Trump administration, Elon Musk and DOGE. With more attacks on public services and public workers coming each day, it can feel like an overwhelming fight.
But we’re not alone. By working within our unions, building strong coalitions with each other, and engaging our communities, we can push back. When we come together as workers, we can win against any bad boss – even the world’s richest.
Unions and organizing can seem mysterious and intimidating if you’re completely new, but the work itself is very simple. There are two steps to get started and join the fight.
Box 37 of your Standard Form 50 (SF-50) will have a BUS code. If that code is 7777, you are not represented by a union, but you are eligible. An 8888 code means you are ineligible to join a union, but you may be misclassified, so don’t stop there; workers have organized despite legal gray areas. If that code is any other number, you can look up who represents you with the Office of Personnel Management.
Dues are how we pool our collective resources and decide to protect and expand our rights — by hiring lawyers to fight in the courts and organizers to keep workers informed and help them to take action together. More people paying dues means our unions are better equipped to scale out that work and invest in resources to escalate the fight. Federal agencies have legal teams and entire HR departments working to protect management’s interests. Funding our union means we the members ensure that we have the resources to fight back.
The Federal Unionists Network (FUN) is an organization for rank-and-file federal workers, union and nonunion alike, to build up the strength of the federal labor movement through worker-to-worker organizing and developing mass actions with community support. FUN can help you plan to mobilize your co-workers to take collective action.
If you have an 8888 code, don’t let that stop you cold — there are mass reports of incorrect changes to the codes. If you are not a supervisor and not excluded by 5 USC 7112 (b), then you may be misclassified, and you can organize to challenge it. If you want to organize a union in your workplace, contact the Emergency Workplace Organizing Committee (EWOC) for support, and they will guide you every step of the way.
If you’d like to form a union or strengthen the one that you have, you will need to get people talking. You are not alone — there are tens of thousands of others there with you, and organizations filled with experienced union activists across the country who want to help you become an active organizer and force for change. In every scenario, it starts with talking to your co-workers and especially listening, not just about what makes people mad, or anxious, but also by posing the question: What do you think we can do? It moves people from thinking of themselves as victims to fellow collaborators and opens up new possibilities.
The Trump administration is fostering a climate of fear, and that suppresses discussion. Opening spaces for conversation with your co-workers can let them know it is okay to express their concerns and anxieties. We can’t close our eyes and hope for the best, and that starts with having real conversations about our worries and what the response (or lack thereof) has been. Start with one-on-one conversations, so people feel safe. The larger the group, the more we hesitate to speak. And start with people you trust the most to avoid tipping management off early.
At a certain point, pose the question. Do you think we can do anything? What? You are now planning together, thinking through what is possible, and when people plan together, they dream bigger than they can alone. Think bigger than what seems possible: What would you want to see happen? What is the road between here and there?
Start to record who you have talked to, who is most excited, and who has the most time, then invite everyone out to talk together — ideally in person but also over Zoom or otherwise as necessary. Don’t use workplace emails, and don’t use workplace resources for this! Instead, collect people’s personal phone numbers and email addresses. If nobody has a Zoom account, use a platform like meet.jit.si.
Share your conversations with one another, and turn your common notes into a shared list. (Keep it private!) Grow the network. Congratulations, you are now part of a workers’ organizing committee!
Invite everyone who is interested. Give people space to vent together, to plan and worry together, and to see how many people there are and how angry they are. When people get together and talk, possibilities emerge.
Have everyone in the organizing committee keep the list updated with their conversations with co-workers and the reach of your organizing. Discuss next steps together, how to draw the most active and excited people in further, and what resources and trainings can be provided to get them up to speed.
FUN or EWOC will help you plan your next meeting or action, share materials that others have developed, and put you in touch with other workers’ committees. Once your committee is big enough and representative of the workforce, many roads are possible. If workers are ready to take risks, there are escalating actions both publicly and internally and now you have the structure to discover what the mood is, to reach democratic decisions, and to take those leaps.