Posts tagged EPA
The Federal Workforce Will Be a Little Smaller After the Government Shutdown Ends
October 16, 2025 // While further reductions in the size of the federal workforce are certainly welcome, the layoffs will have to become significantly more aggressive to more than scratch the federal Leviathan. While smaller than its peak at 3.4 million workers in 1990 and then again in 2010, the federal government still employed 2.9 million people, not counting military personnel, as of August 2025. That's almost 3 million people living off the taxes collected by the federal government (or, increasingly, the money it borrows) rather than productively creating goods and services for willing consumers. And those nearly 3 million people aren't all just sitting around. Too many of them get up to mischief by exercising the power of the government to interfere in people's lives and to enforce intrusive rules and laws. Just see my comment above about the public health establishment and the pandemic. Fewer federal employees mean not so many mischief-makers to cause trouble, along with some cost savings.
Pritzker signs union protection bills amid Trump war on federal unions
August 19, 2025 // The signing comes after the Federal Emergency Management Agency joined at least three other federal agencies in canceling contracts with unions to comply with President Trump’s March executive order that stripped many federal workers of union protections.
USDA moves to end employee union contracts, documents show
August 17, 2025 // The U.S. Department of Agriculture moved to terminate union contracts with thousands of employees of its animal health and food safety inspection agencies, according to documents seen by Reuters, as one union on Wednesday challenged the firings in court. The notices sent to union leaders at the Animal and Plant Health Inspection Service and Food Safety and Inspection Service on Tuesday evening said the action was aligned with President Donald Trump's March executive order to exclude some federal workers from collective bargaining because their agencies have national security missions, the documents show.
Unions’ battle for survival hits new wave with Trump termination of bargaining agreements
August 16, 2025 // “The Teamsters contributed to the NRCC and a sprawling list of House Republicans – signaling a monumental shift of working class voters towards the GOP,” the organization highlighted in an email this week. Beyond the court battles, unions are hopeful Congress could take up a discharge petition that would force the House to take a vote on a bill that would overturn Trump’s March order.
FEMA joins other federal agencies in canceling union contracts
August 12, 2025 // On Friday, FEMA’s acting administrator, David Richardson, sent a memo to American Federation of Government Employees Local 4060, the union representing the agency, saying that FEMA’s collective bargaining agreement had been terminated, ending a nearly 10-year contract.
EPA axes contracts with unions
August 11, 2025 // In that decision, the 9th Circuit stayed a lower court order that prevented the administration from enforcing Trump’s executive order. AFGE brought the legal challenge in that case along with six unions representing more than 1 million federal employees.
What Got Cut from the White House Spending Bill That Benefits Federal Employees
July 11, 2025 // The Senate stripped out: Changes to FERS contributions and pension formulas The at-will employment requirement for new hires The MSPB appeal fee Provisions affecting federal labor unions
EPA union alleges political retaliation, Chicago workers put on leave after criticizing Trump
July 6, 2025 // Targos described the current climate at the EPA. "The mood is dark," Targos said. "We know that we are fighting back as hard as we can." According to the EPA administrator email obtained Friday by the I-Team, the unpaid suspension of these employees will last at least through July 17. It is not known what additional consequences they could face after that date.
Supreme Court likely to decide fate of federal unions
June 30, 2025 // How the Supreme Court will view the matter is anybody’s guess, though the Roberts Court has shown deference to the executive branch and a willingness to revisit precedent involving public sector unions. In its 2018 Janus v. AFSCME ruling, the court said public sector employees could not be forced to join a union as a condition of employment. Federal government collective bargaining is relatively recent, having only been codified in 1978. The Roberts Court may decide collective bargaining is a privilege, not a right, for federal workers.
Op-Ed: Federal union bosses: To ‘save democracy,’ let us finish destroying it
June 30, 2025 // How are federal union bosses reacting now that a president is finally taking action to put a halt to a system that, as former union attorney Kurt Hanslowe foresaw back in 1967, empowers “entrenched and mutually supportive government officials and collective bargaining representatives” over whom the public has “diminishing control” to make joint decisions about tax rates and other public policies? True to form, union officials are claiming Trump’s efforts to restore representative government are anti-democratic! For example, American Federation of Government Employees President Everett Kelley, whose union filed the pending lawsuit to block E.O.14251, unsurprisingly claims the Trump Administration’s actions “represent a clear threat” to “every American who “values democracy.”