Trump administration moves to curtail union representation at EPA

Last week, EPA employees received a surprising email. The government agency had already banned staff from conducting union business on agency time. Now they were being told not to conduct union business during personal time, either.

Industry experts and lawmakers say the move is part of a larger effort by the Trump administration to terminate contracts and end union representation at agencies across the federal government.

The email began by reiterating the EPA’s stance on union work during the workday, when union representatives were previously allowed to help members with standard union work like resolving disputes with management. But the email then went on to limit what can be done outside of “duty time.”

That last part is particularly surprising to Sharon Block, executive director of the Center for Labor and a Just Economy at Harvard Law School. She said the federal statute on conflicts of interest prevents federal employees from representing someone else in a lawsuit against the government, but she said that ethical standard doesn’t generally apply to representation within the agency.

“I don’t know of that statute being ever applied in this kind of context,” Block said. “I mean federal employees are always representing each other as part of their union activities. ... I mean, it doesn’t make any sense otherwise.”

Block said she’s also concerned that the email raised the issue of potential ethics violations. She stressed that those restrictions are backed up by both civil and criminal penalties.

“My fear would be — even if this is a specious argument about whether it would possibly be an ethics violation to engage with your union on your own time — that that kind of email going out to that many EPA employees would have a pretty serious chilling effect on their willingness to engage with their union at all, at a moment it’s really critical that the employees be able to talk to the union,” said Block, who previously served in a range of federal labor policy positions across the legislative and executive branches.

For EPA union leaders like Lilly Simmons, the latest email, and the prior announcements about collective bargaining, represent an unprecedented attack on the ability of the union to represent workers. Simmons works in the EPA’s Region 1 office, which covers New England, and is president of AFGE Local 3428.

“The EPA has had unions my full career. So more than 20 years, there’s been a union in the workplace,” Simmons said.

She said their most recent contract, signed last year, took more than two years of negotiations.

“Not recognizing this contract and the existence of the bargaining unit is highly unusual, likely illegal,” Simmons said.

In March, President Donald Trump signed an executive order ending collective bargaining rights for employees at around 20 federal agencies. A spokesperson for the EPA told GBH News in an emailed statement that the agency was following the order.

“EPA is working to diligently implement President Trump’s Executive Orders with respect to AFGE, including ‘Exclusions from Federal Labor-Management Relations Programs, in compliance with the law,” the statement read.

But Simmons said that March executive order shouldn’t apply to the EPA. The order cited a federal law that allows the administration to end collective bargaining for employees involved in issues of national security.

“I don’t have a security clearance,” Simmons said. “I don’t work on international issues. Most of our staff don’t do that. We work on local, national issues that help to protect our environment and human health. Not national security.”

Lawsuits over that executive order continue to play out in the courts, but earlier this month a federal judge lifted a preliminary injunction, allowing the order to move forward.

A federal bill that would rescind the executive order and restore the collective bargaining rights and union contracts of federal workers currently has 222 cosponsors, including the entirety of Massachusetts’ all-Democratic congressional delegation. The legislation would still need to pass the Senate and be signed by Trump to become law.

Rep. Jim McGovern said they hope to get the 218 votes necessary to use a process called a “discharge petition” that would force the House to take a vote on the bill. McGovern said forcing a vote in the House would make an important point.

“I think that if we were able to have this debate and have a successful vote in the House, it’s meaningful pushback of this administration,” McGovern said. “It’s putting them on notice that there are not just Democratic members of Congress, but there’s a handful of Republican members of Congress who are outraged that we are reneging on these lawfully negotiated contracts that workers and management worked out over the years.”

A vote on the legislation would be more than just a protest, McGovern said.

“The alternative is just to roll over and to allow them to nullify these union contracts and protections,” he said. “And this is so wrong. This goes against, quite frankly, bipartisan tradition of respecting collective bargaining in the federal government. And Trump doesn’t like it. He wants more control.”

Rep. Ayanna Pressley agrees.

“Not only is Trump’s move to unilaterally strip EPA workers of their collective bargaining rights egregiously shameful and unlawful, but it is also an attack on the environmental justice they work towards every day — putting clean air, water, living conditions, and our planet at stake,” Pressley said in a written statement. “Every federal worker deserves to be met with dignity and humanity. That’s why it is critical that we pass the Protect America’s Workforce Act, which would reverse Trump’s order and restore collective bargaining rights for all unionized federal employees.”