Just days after a federal appeals court cleared the way for President Donald Trump to yank dozens of agencies and government offices out of their contracts with federal labor unions, the administration commenced doing just that, terminating collective bargaining rights for hundreds of thousands of federal workers.
On Wednesday, the Department of Veterans Affairs announced it was cancelling union contracts for most of its staff, a move that stripped some 350,000 VA employees of worker protections, according to Pete Kasperowicz, the VA press secretary. Only union contracts for around 4,000 police, firefighters and security guards remain in place, the VA said. In a statement, the agency called the termination of federal workers’ rights “good news for Veterans.”
On Friday, the Environmental Protection Agency also terminated its union contracts for at least 8,000 union members. The Federal Emergency Management Agency and U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services have canceled their collective bargaining agreements, too, according to the Washington Post. Around 21,000 additional federal workers will be impacted by those cancellations according to posts on the American Federation of Government Employees’ website.
These moves came after Trump in March signed an executive order terminating collective bargaining for federal workers under the guise of national security concerns. In the order, Trump sought to eliminate federal workers’ union rights at myriad agencies and departments because, it said, their staff was “determined to have as a primary function intelligence, counterintelligence, investigative, or national security work.” On the long list of institutions included in the order are the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases and the National Science Foundation.
“It’s absurd on the face of it but it just doesn’t matter,” Erik Loomis, a professor of labor history at the University of Rhode Island, told TPM. “[Trump’s] going to do it and the courts are going to allow him to do it.”
Trump’s executive order was promptly tied up in litigation. A lawsuit from six unions including the American Federation of Government Employees (AFGE) argued Trump’s executive order was retaliatory because it selectively ended union participation for some agencies while maintaining them for others. The coalition won an injunction from a U.S. District judge for the Northern District of California in June, but, on Aug. 1, a three-judge panel of the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals ruled unanimously that the administration’s order “on its face… does not express any retaliatory animus.” (The panel was made up of two Trump appointees and one Obama appointee.) That decision effectively lifted the injunction, allowing agencies to proceed with carrying out Trump’s union-busting executive order as litigation proceeds.
“When you have these unclear legal guidelines around federal workers with a court system that is very dominated by anti-union Republicans at this point, it didn’t surprise me one bit,” Loomis said of the August decision. “I would absolutely expect continued attacks on federal unionization using whatever excuse.”
These federal workers have now lost important worker protections that prevent them from falling victim to arbitrary firing and job loss, Loomis said. Since returning to office in January, more than 150,000 federal employees accepted early resignation offers and left the government workforce. At least 51,000 more have been fired or targeted for layoffs according to a CNN analysis that was last updated in mid-July. Federal union leaders allege Trump is retaliating against the unions, who have been on the frontlines of Trump’s war on the civil service, often suing to protect jobs the administration sought to cut. With the appeals court ruling, the administration is now cleared to target some 950,000 total employees represented by federal unions at nearly two dozen agencies.
Some EPA employees impacted by last week’s announcement are represented by the National Association of Independent Labor (NAIL). Its president Peter Cantwell urged the Trump administration to restore collective bargaining agreements, or CBAs, for EPA workers in an email to TPM.
“The EPA’s email notice of its decision to unilaterally terminate a legal contract is legally and procedurally deficient, as is the purported designation of the EPA as an agency with a national security mission,” Cantwell said in the email. “Removing CBAs risks disrupting critical programs that safeguard the nation’s air, water and public health.”
The National Association of Government Employees called the dissolution of the unions “unprecedented, unlawful, and a direct attack,” on federal employee rights in a press release.
The American Federation of Government Employees, or AFGE, is the largest union for VA employees.
“Secretary Collins’ decision to rip up the negotiated union contract for majority of its workforce is another clear example of retaliation against AFGE members for speaking out against the illegal, anti-worker, and anti-veteran policies of this administration,” said Everett Kelley, AFGE national president about Trump’s VA Secretary Douglas Collins.
In his newsletter How Things Work, labor journalist Hamilton Nolan pointed out the staggering impact Trump’s dismantling of federal unions has had on the broader American labor movement. The Bureau of Labor Statistics reported that in 2024, 14.3 million American workers belonged to a union. If the number of federal employees who lost union protections so far is 379,000, that represents more than 2.6% of all unionized workers in America.
“In other words,” wrote Nolan, “with nothing more than a memo and a compliant court, Trump has already eliminated more union members than the entire US labor movement typically gains or loses in an entire year.”
The implications of Trump’s assault on federal workers will have a pointed effect on certain demographics, too. Black people make up a disproportionately large share of federal workers. In 2020, Black employees were more than 25% of the VA’s staff, according to a report from the Veterans Health Administration Office of Health Equity. In 2021, 16.8% of the EPA’s staff were Black, according to a report from the agency.
“Federal work has been a staple of Black economic life, especially in the D.C. area, for a century or more,” Loomis said. “So what this does is it’s part of a broader war on Black America by the Trump administration.”
While federal government unions exist on shakier ground than private sector ones — they’re not protected by the same set of laws — Loomis said they still have their benefits.
“What a union really is about is protection on a job,” he said.
With Trump’s attacks on workers’ rights, “I would actually be surprised,” Loomis said, “if there were any unionized federal workers besides law enforcement by 2028.”