The Federal Worker unions (particularly AFGE) has not given up an inch of ground.
They are going to negotiate the proposed change in working conditions in minute detail—think hundreds of lawyers grinding it out for months.
(You do know that AFGE has thousands of lawyers as members, right?)
By the time AFGE is done with the mandates, there will be so many exclusions, exceptions, loopholes that no one person will even know all of them—and the mass media will never figure out what is happening....
AFGE info:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/American_Federation_of_Government_Employees
670,000 members
Many of them will never get the jab.
Many more are eligible for retirement at any time, including most of the SMEs (subject matter experts) that do the detailed work that keeps the bureaucracy functioning.
In the case of a vaccine mandate, the scope of bargaining is likely to be limited. Our position on the need to negotiate around these new provisions has not changed. Our union expects any necessary bargaining to take place prior to implementation, and we urge every AFGE member and federal worker who is able to get vaccinated as soon as possible.