‘Not just about our union’: Local federal workers protest Trump administration actions they say harms them and the public

Several dozen federal union workers and supporters rallied on Wednesday in Downtown Pittsburgh against recent attacks on public sector unions and workers by the Trump administration. 

Members of the National Treasury Employees Union Chapter 34 and several chapters of the American Federation of Government Employees organized the “Rally for Respect” outside of the Moorhead Federal Building in response to last month’s executive order by President Donald Trump attempting to cancel contracts for more than a million government employees. 

“It’s not just about us; it’s not just about our union,” said Elizabeth McPeak, NTEU 34 first vice president. “It’s about the services that people are not going to be able to get.” 

Those services include answering phone calls from taxpayers who have questions to helping veterans find health care, according to McPeak. 

NTEU 34 said it represents more than 600 local IRS employees in Pittsburgh — most of whom work Downtown — including 300 workers who answer almost a million phone calls a year from taxpayers. The union is in the middle of a six-year contract with the IRS. 

AFGE said it represents about 4,000 Veterans Affairs employees in the region, including about 200 in Downtown who help injured veterans file claims for money, health care, education and burial in a national cemetery.  

“Our jobs have value, and not just to us,” McPeak said. “Our jobs have value to the American people. We do vital work day in and day out, sometimes under very trying circumstances, to serve the American public.”

Between the anti-union executive order and unprecedented job cuts in the federal government by the Trump administration, the future of these workers is uncertain. Multiple unions have filed lawsuits to stop the executive order. 

“We took an oath to the Constitution to uphold the laws of this country – the very laws that give us the right to form a union and have a voice in the vital work we do,” NTEU Chapter 34 President Charleen Stephansky said in a statement. “Our union has represented IRS workers for nearly 90 years. We won’t back down now.”