How are unions pushing back against Trump's attacks on labor and layoffs?

"As Donald Trump continues his drive to cull the federal workforce and consolidate his power, labor unions have emerged as some of his staunchest opponents. Unions are battling the administration in federal courtrooms nationwide, after filing dozens of lawsuits to try to halt attempts to shed hundreds of thousands of government employees, strip collective bargaining rights from over a million workers, and gut some federal agencies."

"Such lawsuits are designed to stand up to the growing autocratic threat we are seeing in the United States each day, said Skye Perryman, CEO and president of the legal group Democracy Forward, which has represented unions in a string of cases, including their bid to block Trump's latest layoffs. In the United States, working people and organized labor have been responsible for stopping abuses of power and igniting generational change, she told the Guardian."

"Each lawsuit demonstrates the same thing in each filing, Suzanne Summerlin, a labor attorney in Washington DC, said. A government willing to break the law, just to see if anyone will stop it. It's governance by impulse, not principle like handing the keys to the country over to a group of 12-year-olds, she said. They'll keep going and testing the limits until an adult stops them."

Labor unions have filed dozens of lawsuits nationwide to stop administration plans to lay off hundreds of thousands of federal employees, strip collective bargaining rights from over a million workers, and dismantle some federal agencies. Federal courts have responded with injunctions, including a temporary restraining order from Judge Susan Illston blocking recent mass layoffs tied to the government shutdown. Legal groups and union coalitions argue these measures threaten democratic norms and workers' rights and describe the government's approach as testing legal limits and acting by impulse rather than principle.

Read at www.theguardian.com