Kennedy Executive Order 10988 Grants Federal Workers Collective Bargaining Rights

President John F. Kennedy issues Executive Order 10988 granting federal employees the right to collective bargaining for the first time in U.S. history, catalyzing explosive growth in public sector unionization that transforms the American labor movement. Following Kennedy’s executive action, 22 states pass legislation legalizing collective bargaining for state and local government workers between the mid-1960s and early 1970s, with immediate dramatic results: in New York, 360,000 state and local employees unionize within one year of the 1967 Taylor Law passage.

Public sector union membership grows tenfold between 1955-1975, reaching over 4 million members by the early 1970s. AFSCME experiences the most explosive expansion, growing from 99,000 members (1955) to nearly 1 million (1980) under Jerry Wurf’s leadership—at the peak of organizing in 1969, AFSCME adds 1,000 new workers daily. This public sector surge partially compensates for declining private sector membership, fundamentally shifting the labor movement’s composition from industrial manufacturing workers to government employees in education, sanitation, healthcare, and public services.

The dramatic growth in public sector unionization from Executive Order 10988 makes these unions a primary target for corporate-funded labor destruction campaigns beginning in the 2000s. ALEC develops comprehensive anti-public-sector-union model legislation culminating in Wisconsin’s Act 10 (2011), while the Janus v. AFSCME Supreme Court decision (2018) imposes right-to-work on all public sector workers nationwide, systematically dismantling the gains achieved through Kennedy’s executive order and subsequent state legislation. The 56-year arc from Executive Order 10988 (1962) enabling public sector organizing to Janus (2018) destroying mandatory fees demonstrates how rights granted through executive and legislative action can be eliminated through coordinated ALEC campaigns and judicial capture via Federalist Society-vetted Supreme Court appointments.