r/FedEmployees • u/LiveNLearn11 • 1d ago
Can we join protests?
Hi,
I'm new tor the federal workforce. I'd like to join the protests tomorrow but not sure if we are allowed? I am not working tomorrow.
Thanks.
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u/Optimal_Stuff1652 1d ago
I've protested over the years and plan to tomorrow. It's our constitutional right to do so.
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u/Phobos1982 1d ago
You can, legally and ethically, as long as you're not on the clock and don't attempt to represent your agency.
However, I advise at least wearing a COVID style mask and a cap you don't normally wear. You don't want to end up on a list somewhere...
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u/Xist3nce 1d ago
Y’all got balls protesting when your employer could disappear you in a heartbeat.
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u/Full-Price8984 1d ago
The minus on this has me worried
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u/Xist3nce 19h ago
It’s just cope that their government may now actually do that to them. They have convinced themselves it isn’t possible and we’re seeing it in real-time everywhere else.
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u/Full-Price8984 19h ago
Chickens coming home to roost is the most natural thing in the world is what Malcolm told us and yet, liberals still think the chickens will stay away
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u/Xist3nce 18h ago
That’s so poignant considering the price of eggs helped get us here. One day they’ll wake up and realize it’s too late to do anything and then it’ll be “where were the signs! No one could have predicted this!”
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u/getturdun 1d ago
Chump isn't my employer. I was federal employee before he ever was.
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u/Xist3nce 1d ago
You’re right, he appointed and owns your boss. It doesn’t matter what any of us think, with the flick of a pen, your director starts slobbing on it and all of you take their orders. We will be lucky to correct the damage he’s done in the next 20 years.
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u/BettyDarling5683 1d ago
My employer supports the protests. Try again.
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u/Xist3nce 19h ago
The one who owns your employer calls the shots, so it doesn’t matter what your direct boss says when the director of the FBI calls for your head.
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u/Dave8781 20h ago
Thanks! Not sure why you're getting down voted for the clear humor.
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u/Xist3nce 19h ago
It’s just cope, they don’t wanna believe it’s possible. It is however quite humorous how low we’ve become.
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u/NullLog 1d ago
You should probably be careful, but protesting one's government isn't SUPPOSED to be illegal as long as it doesn't turn into a riot.
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u/JaekBot2K 1d ago
Turns out that's also not illegal seeing how those pardons went
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u/Full-Price8984 1d ago
It only turns into a riot when the 🐷 say so. No c person or people ever started a riot
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u/Plus-Professor5909 1d ago
Lots of us Feds (and former Feds now) out there protesting. It’s very empowering, you should too!
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u/thenletskeepdancing 1d ago
Yes! If you've never been to a protest before, I suggest you give it a try! You can show up on the edges and observe if you want. You don't need to bring a sign or anything. Just show up and watch. Only participate to the extent you feel comfortable. I'm a 59 year old woman who discovered protesting late in life and recommend it.
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u/VastPerspective6794 1d ago
58 year old bog witch here— and I’m attending my first protest tomorrow!
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u/Icy_Dog730 1d ago
It only takes a resistance of 3.5% to eliminate authoritarianism. I’m a fed. I’ll be there. Welcome to the resistance.
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u/unsteadywhistle 1d ago
May I know ask where you got the 3.5% figure? I have yet to read anything that specific but would very much like to.
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u/BadGuyBusters2020 1d ago
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u/AmputatorBot 1d ago
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Maybe check out the canonical page instead: https://www.bbc.com/news/stories-54142487
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u/mickeyt13 1d ago
Wear a hat & mask. Or a costume
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u/New_Ask_5044 1d ago
I don’t disagree, and I hope we all realize how absolutely crazy it is that this is the reality RN in America.
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u/Saelyn 1d ago
Additional anonymity tips:
- Phone in airplane mode, location off, force close all apps, turn off biometric unlock. Obviously only bring personal devices.
- Non-descript clothing (neutral colors, no logos)
- Tie your hair up if it's long
- Sunglasses, non descript hat, plain n95/kn95
- Keep your sign and any chanting, etc w/in the group, don't be a leader or draw attention to yourself
- Have an answer prepared for if a stranger asks what you do for work. It is not illegal to protest, and it is also not illegal to lie to strangers.
- Travel in groups and have a designated meet up point and time.
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u/AffectCold1560 1d ago
You absolutely have the right to participate. However, it is a legitimate concern that your participation may be used against you. Although this is illegal, this administration has no problem with trampling and violating our rights. Wear a mask and conceal your identity. Unfortunately, as protests grow, as the thugs become more aggressive, protecting our identities will likely become more and more important.
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u/SoaringAcrosstheSky 1d ago
Yes.
Don't do something illegal.
Don't want yourself on national tv and people tracking you. Wear a hat. L
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u/Prize_Magician_7813 1d ago
Ill be there as a fed…i just wont say anything related to work!!! My sign will say “you should be glad we want equality and not revenge” If anyone asks what you do or tries to interview, silently walk away. I wanted to make a sign for va care or veterans rights but just too close to work!
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u/JulieThinx 1d ago
FYI: In all my protests, I have come across many of my former fellow VA employees ;)
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u/espressotorte 1d ago
Yep.
Edit: it's good advice to take public transportation as well so no one can ID your vehicle
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u/Sorry-Society1100 1d ago
Legally? Yes, provided that you don’t identify yourself as a Federal employee, so you can avoid any violations of the Hatch Act. You still have first amendment rights.
However, I might suggest wearing a mask anyway—that’s how some of those foreign students were singled out for deportation. You maybe don’t want to find out the hard way that they’re using facial recognition technology to see who they can use as an example.
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u/tomwilde 1d ago
This. Know about the Hatch Act. As long as you don't give any sign or indication that you're acting in your official capacity as a federal employee, you have the right to free speech as anyone in the U.S.*
*Terms and conditions for lawful residents may differ.
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u/Kamwind 1d ago
Especially since the lawful residents assaulted people, broke other felony crimes, were in the country illegally, and were providing funding to terrorist groups.
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u/tomwilde 1d ago
Lawful: "acting or living according to the law; law-abiding". None of those actions you mention are legal. Therefore a lawful person will not have done any of them.
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u/chillarry 1d ago
On top of the other things posted here, do not get arrested. If police come and if they have shields and stand in formation back away. Get away.
Seriously, getting arrested will likely get you terminated in this administration.
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u/UpstairsAd9203 1d ago
YES, FOR CERTAIN! Hope that some of the many thousands of the DC area federal workers who have been fired find their way down to the Washington Monument at Noon tomorrow for the massive demonstration. Fired fed employees would constitute a huge crowd of protestors. And you folks have PLENTY to protest about!
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u/throwaway-coparent 1d ago
Go if you want. If you take your phone -
Turn off the location services on your phone
Put phone in airplane mode
Park far away or use public transpo so they can’t identify you by your car
Bring water
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u/Ambitious_Battle9161 1d ago
I will be speaking at one and know other Feds who have as well. What are they going to do? Fire me again and reinstate me again because they don’t know how to legally fire people?
Maybe it is bc of privileges that I feel confident to speak up. Or maybe it is because I am traumatized by what I have witnessed in my work and the lives of children depend on the existence of my agency.
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u/TiguanRedskins 1d ago
If you go into DC you should turn off your phone before you leave. We have friends who are civil rights lawyers and they said it’s a good chance they will try to identify people for retribution. The can use stingray to act as a carrier. If you are arrested they will try to access your phone. They recommended not taking your phone at all and writing numbers on your arm.
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u/Nearby_Sense_2247 1d ago
The Hatch Act allows you to do anything you want politically- except running for partisan offices- on your own free time. So, yes.
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u/Jmsjss2912 1d ago
Let’s talk about the tariffs and the effects it has on the manufacturers of this country.
Assume for a minute that you wanted to bring back some manufacturing to the USA, which of course is a huge assumption compared to manufacturing outside the country like we do as a company.
Which I will get to in just a moment. This week alone the stock market lost over US$9 trillion which means every single manufacturer that has a US corporation is part of that loss. Which goes to show you that Trump‘s logic is about as efficient as his spray tan.
If these companies even had a thought of coming back to the United States, all of their cash has now evaporated because of the loss in the stock market so who’s going to finance these new manufacturing plants that Trump keeps talking about, that are going to come back here make the economy great?
Now goods have gone up in price in some cases doubled already this week which means the consumers are going to be buying less. Companies are going to begin layoffs, because they’ve lost a huge portion of their cash reserves. Their businesses are going to be diminished some because of the lower purchasing rate and the higher pricing.
Bringing manufacturing back to the United States at this point with this approach has been almost completely eliminated.
All you have to do is go back and look at what happened during the depression when they tried to institute tariffs causing the depression to take even a further nose dive and adding years into the depressive point. It’s such a joke that they used it in the movie Ferris Bueller‘s Day off where the teacher was talking about how bad tariffs are and how they caused the depression to go down, which goes to show you that if they use it as a punchline, then it obviously cannot work.
With our business, we were building some manufacturing plants in the United States and now have had to put it on hold because of the tariffs. As an example, each of our production lines has a manufacturing cost of a little under US$5 million, we did try to price it in the United States but we found quotes anywhere from $12-$16 million for the same exact production line that we are having made in China. So we couldn’t make the equipment in the United States, but we were going to import it and set up manufacturing plants.
One of them was in Arkansas where the state is somewhat depressed. Now we have put that project on hold with approximately 1800 people we were going to hire.
The reason for that is not just the tariffs, from the equipment if you think about it a piece of equipment that cost me $5 million is now going to cost me about $9 million. Each production line generates about US$35 million of revenue so it’s not just a tariff in my situation it’s the fact that for $9 million I can have practically two production lines generating $70 million of income compared to the same $9 million generating $35 million worth of income, with a much lower profit margin because of the labor cost in the United States along with all the taxes and liability issues that you carry because of the litigious nature of the United States operating.
So tariffs do not work, they hurt the economy. The only thing that they do on the surface is generate more tax dollars for the US government, but they diminish and wipe out the middle and lower class.
Do you want to bring manufacturing back to the United States?
You’ve got to do something about all of the litigious actions, you have to lower healthcare cost, lower pharmaceutical cost, have to educate more so that children can grow up and learn trades.
You have to find ways to lower the cost of living and once you start doing that then laboring jobs will become available again.
The next problem is the taxation situation is off-balance. We have structured our tax code so that the wealthy and the publicly traded companies that offer stock options instead of salaries, which is taxable make it almost impossible to collect tax.
Take Musk for an example from Tesla.
They talk about his $300 billion worth but it’s all in stock and that’s unrealized gains paying no taxes. What he does is he goes to the bank and he borrows money against that stock portfolio, borrowed money is non-taxable income and then he uses that money to live and buy things like he bought Twitter for $44 billion with borrowed money, no taxes paid at all.
And then what he does from there to pay off those loans is he borrows against other portfolios and he just keeps borrowing deferring the taxes.
$300 billion and no taxes paid whereas the employees that work for all those companies have taxes taken out of each paycheck.
Just look salaries up of the top executives around the country and you look at their income, you’ll see that their salaries are generally between one hundred and two hundred thousand US dollars but they earned anywhere from ten to a hundred million dollars a year all in stock options and then they keep those options in stock and then borrow against them so their tax base is almost nothing.
you want to fix the economy. You have to find a way to tax the rich, you’re not going to make them poor, you’re just going to make them help to strengthen the economy.
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u/Perfect_Day_8669 1d ago
Be lawful. Record anything that happens to you. I will be wearing sunglasses and 😷. I don’t need pictures is me anywhere.
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u/EternalGradStudent1 1d ago
Yes, there are clear guidelines about what is and isn't allowed. Definitely recommend a mask and/or using makeup techniques that trick the air facial recognition software. Be safe and stand up for what you belive in.
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u/TeaTimeBanjo 1d ago
I’ve been to lots of protests and I love them. I broke my foot recently and I think crutches and crowds don’t mix, so I’m sitting out the events tomorrow, but hope everyone has a great time and will be there in spirit.
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u/Cluck-It 20h ago
Right there with you on the broken foot. (Also broke at the ankle and torn ACL that needs fixing) We'll be there in spirit. 💕
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u/TeaTimeBanjo 16h ago
So sorry to hear! I hope you mend quickly. I’ve just upgraded from a knee scooter to the iWalk knee crutch, which has been great. I’m also getting a lot of confused/concerned looks from the neighborhood dogs, who I assume are trying to figure out what kind of creature I am that moves about in such unusual ways. :)
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u/CaptainOwlBeard 1d ago
Historically your right to free speech protects that activity, however this admin doesn't seem to care. If you are identified by the admin as having gone to a protest, I'd expect them to fire you, legal or not
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u/33Blackfish 1d ago
Since many of us will become Schedule Policy (F) employees if we somehow survive the rif, I’d definitely wear a mask to a protest. I believe they’ll be looking for evidence of disloyalty by employees.
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u/Full-Price8984 1d ago
The administration has as much power to identify any person as much as any administration. Do not let them see you
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u/FancyThat812 1d ago
Mask, googles, a neck gator, reusable water bottle (that way if you need to go into a museum or store that doesnt allow water you can just empty it out.) And an umbrella/extra socks.
Use a Faraday bag for your phone or consider leaving it in your car. Remain peaceful and let your booming voice be heard!
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u/Fastgirl600 23h ago
The more the merrier... come one come all! You don't need a sign, you just need yourself!
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u/Legitimate-Ad-9724 23h ago
I'm unable to go to a local protest for be with a sick friend, otherwise I would. Would I really be fired for doing something on my personal time after working for 41 years? Maybe. If that happened, it's retirement, unemployment insurance, and now I'm totally free to say anything I want (assuming they don't cancel the 1st Amendment).
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u/Affectionate_Rice520 1d ago
You can do anything you want on your off time as long as you don’t represent the department of office that you’re working for
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u/Smooth_Editor4197 1d ago
Hell Yeah! If you are active duty military I would not participate in the protest, but Civil and Postal Service absolutely!!!!
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u/Full-Price8984 1d ago
Wear a mask and glasses. Dark ones. Nondescript clothing. Do not do anything that will identify you. Also, be gay. Do crimes.
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u/Gloomy-Potato8279 1d ago
Layers of light clothing. Easily to remove if pepper sprayed, have to change quickly or etc
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u/sunshineinthe813 1d ago
Yes. You’re allowed. Be mindful that you are a civil servant and have ethical obligations. I even told my supervisor- just in case. Idk anymore though. I’m 35 years in and a few months away from retirement. Taking my cowbell! Haha
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u/After_Nectarine6615 17h ago
Just do not fund raise and you are compliant. Buyer beware on being sited by this Administration.
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u/BrooklynVA 21h ago
It depends on the agency….there is at least one where (I believe) you are not allowed.
Keep in mind, there will be cameras. People with cell phones, people posting to social media, news, the other side, etc. and the administration will not hesitate to fire you, regardless of what you’re “allowed” to do.
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u/Quick-Lifeguard94 11h ago
I highly encourage you to protest. That’ll make the RIF all that much easier.
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u/Cultural-Bear-6870 7h ago
I haven't yet because I can't afford to risk it... nobody's got my back if they decide to 86 me. Sure, we have our first amendment rights... but who is going to enforce them for us?
I thanked friends and family that have, though.
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u/Strange-Ad6547 1h ago
Sad that this is a question that must be asked now. 1st amendment, 4th amendment who needs protected natural rights. Let's all just get in our place and stay there until our betters tell us otherwise. 😖
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u/nonamenoname69 17h ago
The concept of a protest is not needing permission. Just understand that you aren’t exempt from consequences.
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u/LiveNLearn11 1d ago
Thank you everyone. Looks like it might be best not to go. I was thinking of joining a local protest that probably will be small and therefore I could be recognized more easily. As some of you have pointed out, I don’t want to be on a list somewhere. Shame because I really wanted to do something to make a difference.
Thanks again for the input.
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u/CorrectBad3250 1d ago
I don't think that's the message people were giving you..? They're just telling you to take sensible precautions.
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u/Only-Tough-1212 1d ago
You are a private citizen expressing their 1st amendment rights. don’t let it intimidate you. Like others have said where a mask and sunglasses and don’t talk about work. I usually bring a hat or change of at least one clothing article for when I leave.
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u/pandaluv25 1d ago
I think it’s important to go but as others shared, try to take precautions. It’s crazy we need to do that now. The only way our voices will be heard is if enough people stand up and say enough
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u/No-Comedian-4447 1d ago
Yeah, but I would look for a new job. This administration doesn't need that kind of nonsense on the payroll. Work for a company like Starbucks or Disney. Something that aligns with your values more.
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u/ok-starkbridge 1d ago
Why protesting ?
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u/tomwilde 1d ago
Not happy with things as they are?
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u/ok-starkbridge 1d ago
I am federal employee as well but I am happy
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u/tomwilde 1d ago
Are you aware that others aren't? There are a great many whose lives have been turned upside down. Entire departments destroyed. They are moved to protest by their own situation. People who aren't in that position are empathetic with those who are and those affected and protest on their behalf. When we lose the capacity for empathy we lose our humanity.
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u/Glittering-Lie2077 1d ago
No youre not supposed to participate. I doubt anything will happen to you if you do though.
15 branch chief at a dod agency
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u/Abalyn 1d ago
Yes, you are allowed. Ensure you’re not on work time, not wearing identifying insignia, etc., and don’t talk about working for XYZ agency.
For further safety considerations, ensure you aren’t taking your work phone/laptop obviously (and maybe not even your personal phone), your gov’t ID, etc. Oh and maybe wear a mask. I probably won’t be that paranoid but I don’t care if I’m fired. If you are worried about being fired, I’d take extra precautions.