Let’s Resolve to Fight for Workers’ Rights
As we approach the end of 2025 and look back over the last year, it’s incredible how much has changed — and how exhausted many of us feel. We have spoken out against cuts to Medicaid and other safety-net funding all year. President Donald Trump and the architects of Project 2025 promised to implement major changes once he was elected. Indeed, the Trump administration has been busy taking away our rights as workers.
Union Busting and Pink Slips
Although so much of NYSNA’s member education and advocacy this year was to stop the devastating federal healthcare cuts, we cannot ignore the Trump administration’s other sweeping changes.
One of the administration’s first actions was to strip collective bargaining rights from more than 1 million federal public sector workers, or about 7% of all union workers in the U.S. Trump signed an executive order in March that cancelled collective bargaining agreements and stopped dues collection for the first wave of federal agencies. In August, the administration stripped collective bargaining rights from 360,000 healthcare workers at the Department of Veterans Affairs (VA).
VA nurses have had a union for decades. Their collective bargaining agreements have helped them improve working conditions, staffing ratios, workplace safety and more. The administration swept away these contract gains and workers’ rights, leaving VA nurses sounding the alarm that conditions will worsen for nurses and our nation’s veterans.
The attack on workers’ rights extended to an attack on workers’ jobs and livelihoods. In December, the Trump administration announced it was eliminating 35,000 more VA jobs, including nurses and doctors who largely avoided the VA job cuts earlier this summer.
The administration also took away union rights from federal workers in agencies such as the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, the Environmental Protection Agency, the Agriculture Department’s Food Safety and Inspection Service, and the Weather Service. Having union rights and strong whistleblower protections has helped workers in these agencies protect the public health and public good. The government has laid off approximately 317,000 federal workers or eliminated their jobs in 2025.
Labor Rights Under Attack
Since 1935, the National Labor Relations Act has spelled out workers’ rights and established the right to collective bargaining in the private sector. The National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) has overseen enforcing labor law — settling disputes between labor and management. Although the board moves too slowly at times, especially when it comes to protecting workers from retaliation and other enforcement responsibilities, NYSNA nurses depend on the NRLB for scheduling union elections, settling arbitration disputes, ruling on unfair labor practice charges and more.
Since January 2025, when Trump unlawfully fired NLRB Board Chair Gwynne A. Wilcox, the federal NLRB has been nonfunctional because it does not have a quorum to hear cases. Although New York’s regional NLRB offices are still operating, some deep-pocketed employers like NewYork-Presbyterian have learned that they can appeal local NLRB decisions, invest in expensive lawsuits and leave nurses waiting in limbo for arbitration awards.
On Dec. 18, the Senate approved Trump’s pro-boss and anti-union NLRB appointees, putting pro-union rulings and precedents at risk as the federal NLRB restarts its work and begins hearing a backlog of cases.
Ready for 2026
Nurses and our union allies must continue to fight back for our rights in 2026 — whether that’s in our workplaces, in the halls of power, at the ballot box or in the streets. The administration’s sweeping actions in 2025 have helped ensure that the halves continue to grow their wealth and influence over our democracy and the have-nots — the working- and middle-class people in this country — lose their power and fall further behind.
We’re not going to sit back and let that happen. We saw what happened when the administration tried to limit opportunities and increase costs for nurses and other professionals trying to advance their education and careers. Nurses around the country spoke out to denounce the proposal to our “professional” status. Read more about the issue and our fight against this on page 11.
There are already some bright spots. The Protect America’s Workforce Act, which would restore collective bargaining rights for federal public sector workers, is one step closer to passing in Washington. Working people are beginning to speak out and blow the whistle on the flat-out dangers of having too few people care for veterans, test the safety of our water, and protect our health and rights. I know I can count on NYSNA nurses to be among them in 2026.
A surefire way to shake off the exhaustion of last year is to organize, take inspiration from what we accomplished in 2025 through our solidarity, and get ready to take action in 2026. At a time of year that we are making resolutions, let’s resolve to continue to unite and fight for worker justice!