The Federal Trade Union network is the first large-scale network for government workers, and they build solidarity in different departments and labor.
Chris Dols, founder of Fun, performs in the crowd during a rally in May on the Foley Square in New York 1 May 2025.
(Fiba Grandy)
New YOrk CIta—In May 1, in 5 eveningAbout 30 federal workers gathered in the corner of Foley Square in Manhattan. Drowned between bright hotels and game bidding and federal plants, members of the Federal Trade Unions (Fun) networks with the Envardian Protection Agency (EPA), the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB) and the union logo. Passers -by stopped to laugh at the signs with a photo of Russell Wus, director of the US management and budget, which stopped most CFPB operations earlier this year, with devil’s horns.
Over the next half an hour, thousands of participants of the rally came to Lower Manhatta Plaza. Overall, more than 15,000 people were waiting for protest to start. It was not the first rally in New York in New York – the network organizes weekly demonstrations in the quarter – but it was their first May action.
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Fun is the organization of federal working and creating solidarity with other working groups to preserve the work and work they do for the public. This is the struggle, which is a fun founder Chris Dols, a local member of the International Federation of Professional and Technical Engineers (IFPTE), who works in the US engineering army, said he was in May. “We have the opportunity to remind the rest of the working class that we have a day. It is a better American work, its history and its ability not only for the fight, but also for victory,” Dols said. “As federal workers, (we) stand and catalyze the new labor movement together with the protection of the public sphere, which (Trump administration) after. And this is not every life you can do.”
The first entertainment iteration began in 2019 as a small and informal circle of federal workers, and it soon turned into a WhatsApp group that organizes the opposition to Disable Government 2019It was called the Federal Coalition of Workers and mostly consisted of the IFPT, the US Public Service Federation (AFGE) and members of the National Council for Labor Relations. The federal coalition of workers did not actually live past the cessation, but the workers revived it during Biden’s presidency, after Dols said that in 2022 he realized: “If we were not ready to fight for our rights with a relatively friendly administration, how will it be as the next time the Republican?” He and others from the federal coalition of workers began to organize a fun, and such actions as the distribution of an open letter, pressing Senator Chuck Sumer to confirm Joe Biden’s nominees to head the Federal Office for Labor Relations.
A considerable part of this time was spent on preparing for the next Trump presidency. “The fun was very organized to create forces that can return the true struggle,” the next time the president came to power.
Fun is the first large-scale network for federal workers who have no strong solidarity history. According to Dols, “the federal trade union movement does not have the tradition of working together”, but given the attacks faced by the workers, there is no reason “to be industry”.
This year, the 100th Trump administration also took place this year, which, due to the combination of layoffs, ransoms and firing, forced 275 240 federal workers to leave work. Trump also signed the executive order in March Taking away the right of many federal workers to the organization. This irony was not lost for activists and politicians whose speeches began to protest.
The speakers who included DOLS and the representative of the Alexandria Okosio Cartes gained the importance of unity in front of the Trump administration. “My LinkedIn network is not going to save us,” said Dr. Ron Ron, a member of the National Health Program, in the crowd. “The networks we really need are in real life as this massive meeting.”
At the end of the speech, the union began to direct Broadway towards the battery park. “Russell Wuts told us that we wanted us to be injured, and frankly, there are many federal workers who were injured,” Mike, Mike, AFGE and EPA, told us.. “They are very afraid to show their face on functions that are fun. But it goes to these things; it’s nice that this wider movement is.”
While Mike partially talked about the group’s participation in a protest day, he also meant weekly rallies near Manhattan federal buildings. “It can be anything from 30 to 40 people to 200 people,” said AFGE member and EPA Suzy lawyer. “We just want to make sure that if we are present that we continue to work with this muscle.”
Both Susi and Mike heard about pleasure through participation in the local Union and seeing weekly pickets that are taking place around their office building. These are some of the many EPA workers who have been increasingly involved in pleasure. “My work feels like my dream and this is what I have noticed a lot in the agency. People really won’t go out here by accident,” Mike said. “Every regulation that has an EPA is written in the blood of people who have suffered from the hands of unregulated industry.”
Concerns about lapels in the rules are caused by EPA workers to join the union’s efforts. “My work feels very safely a long time because who does not want dangerous waste to be regulated properly, right?” said Susi. “But when we regulate the industry, and the administrator has proven itself very pro-industry, you can’t help but think about my work?”
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After Trump’s election and Dage’s solution, Fun’s membership exploded. And when Trump announced that in March he ended collective talks, the group strengthened its actions. Fun has 1000 active members at the national level along with 16,000 people who sought help from the organization, and seeks to grow, said Drew Curtis, another fun leader who is a member of the AFGE Local 3911 and works in the EPA Environmental Office.
Curtis was a longtime community organizer before he started working at the EPA. “There are many different versions of what you see here, local federal workers networks,” Kurtis said. He listed examples of metropolitan areas across the country that have fun leaders: “Boston, Baltimore, Northern New York, around the capital, the Boiz district. We strive to develop it in more places, rural settlements in the south.” Dols added that a fun group in Bune, North Carolina, took place with a 1,500 turnout event. “We were with one of the federal workers working in one of the parks (in North Carolina) last weekend, and he told us that it was the biggest thing they had.”
In the absentee The 10-hour day was a federal union and now federal workers are the first unions under attack Trump administration. This is one of the main messages of fun: federal workers are the first, but what hurts them will harm daily people.
“Whatever they are rhetorically attacking federal workers as lazy bureaucrats, deep state, everything that is similar is just a political justification,” Dols said about the right attempt, to pronounce the working movement. “But the real thing they want to privatize the large sections of the federal service. They want to take social security. They want to accept these huge services they can privatize.”
Participation in entertainment is a moral amplifier – this, well, fun, said Kurtis. “If I didn’t do it, I would just feel oppressed and would like to refuse … This is what we are going to fight as federal workers, but also with our allies.”
Susi said she shared her feelings: “At the moment when we are forced to feel isolated and unwanted by the public, and all these different things gave us a way out to connect to.”
She said she hoped that other unions hear the group’s message: “We are trying to call the alarm for our private partners constantly.
On May, the group approached the battery, a member of the group shouted into the megaphone: “Federal workers, we are here here!”
Fun participants participated in the May Day after the participation funded by the United Teachers (UFT). The event, which was held in honor of federal workers, gathered UFT and fun members together with other skill participants to hear speeches and history from federal workers. “It’s such a solidarity (we need),” Dols said. “I hope this is just the beginning of relationships with them and other unions.”
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