Anthony Lee is the president of NTEU Chapter 282, and the union represents nearly 9,000 employees of the Food and Drug Administration. Andrea hsu/npr Closed subtitles
By late March, Anthony Lee should let the FDA’s massive layoffs begin soon.
Instead, the union president discovered when he began to receive panic calls one morning.
Employees are learning that they are fired while brushing their badges. A green light means going. A red light means stop.
“For dozens of employees, it turned red and they couldn’t get into the building,” Lee said. “That’s how many people do find their federal services are over.”
Lee is the president of NTEU Chapter 282, and the union represents nearly 9,000 FDA employees. Under the union’s collective bargaining agreement, the government must inform any effective reduction notice in advance.
But the Trump administration did not issue such a notice. It also did not consult Lee when it ended the union's telework agreement.
"Basically, we're ignored," Lee said.
President Trump’s resentment to federal department unions is well known. Despite this, Trump's attack on unions is now "extremely worse" than the president's first term, Lee said.
“Even our presence in the federal workplace (being able to represent employees) is threatened by this administration,” he said.
Trump's efforts to cut thousands of workers to cut federal labor could cut the price department. Even where the staff were left behind, he had done his best to terminate the right to jointly represent the power to occupy the broader workforce.
In late March, Trump issued an executive order that terminated the collective bargaining power of most federal workers and invoked a provision in federal law that gave the president the power to do so in institutions with national security as the main task.
Staff at agencies such as the CIA, the FBI and the National Security Agency no longer have collective bargaining rights.
Trump's executive orders have evolved further, sweeping all kinds of agents that have never been applied for, including the Environmental Protection Agency, the Department of Veterans Affairs and the FDA.
Multiple lawsuits are challenging. In late April, a federal judge issued an injunction that has now blocked it, but the Trump administration appealed the decision.
Trump believes that negotiating with unions on workplace affairs has hindered the capacity of the government he sees as appropriate.
Some people would say that it is design.
exist NYU Law Review ArticleNicholas Handler, associate professor of law at Texas A&M Law School, believes that collective bargaining is a check on the president's power. He wrote that the union’s binding agreements for negotiations on personnel matters such as working conditions, performance review and grievance procedures “constrain and reshape the president’s power to manage the federal bureaucracy.”
Union supporters held signs at a press conference on federal workforce rights outside the U.S. Capitol on March 28, 2025 in Washington, DC Kevin Dietsch/Getty ImagesNorth America Closed subtitles
Civil servants don’t always have this leverage. In the first half of the 20th century, even as unions gained strength elsewhere, there were concerns about how federal workers enforced state laws. After all, civil servants serve the American people.
As a result, federal employees never had the right to strike. They can't negotiate wages, either.
But in the early 1960s, the federal government faced a labor austerity. It requires scientists, economists and lawyers to grow institutions, but cannot pay huge salaries. What it can provide is stability, work protection, and the rights of the coalition after President John Kennedy signed the 1962 executive order.
"Collective negotiations have become an attractive tool for the president to recruit people to the federal civil servants and leverage many tools that can be difficult for highly skilled workers to recruit," Handler said.
Congress then codified these labor protections in the Public Reform Act of 1978 and asserted that the right to organize and collective bargaining “contributes to effective behaviors of public business” and “protects the public interest.”
Handler said that by passing the law, Congress has created its own actions for itself, and the courts have a way to supervise the executive branch.
Consider a situation in which the president wishes to weaken a specific agency, such as the EPA. One way to destroy the institution is to bring life to life in pain for EPA workers, he explained. Collective negotiations provide these employees with a way to promote their ability to serve as a agency task scheduled by Congress.
Now, Trump says those Labor Rights Congresses were formed in 1978, making federal workers irresponsible.
"CSRA enables hostile federal unions to prevent agency administration," a White House document explained. "This is dangerous in institutions with national security responsibilities."
Lee, a 23-year veteran of the FDA, fears that if Trump goes on the road, workers will lose the stability and protection that makes the administration worthy of work.
He was particularly worried that scientists would become vulnerable to political pressure. Under the union contract, employees who review food ingredients, drugs and medical equipment have the right to remind you of safety or efficacy issues without worrying about retribution.
"It remains to be seen whether they allow employees to do the work they expect, protect and promote public health and safety," Lee said.
Armando Rosario-Lebron is the Eastern Regional Vice-Chair of the National Association of Agricultural Employees, which represents about 3,000 federal workers in the USDA’s Animal and Plant Health Inspection Service’s Plant Protection and Quarantine Program. Andrea hsu/npr Closed subtitles
One of Trump’s repeated complaints is that unions make it too difficult to get rid of bad performers. Many union contracts illustrate the long process of doing so.
But others believe that the union helps make the government go smoother.
"Our collective bargaining agreement is a huge efficiency improvement for the government," said Armando Rosario-Lebron, vice president of the National Association of Agricultural Employees.
His bargaining units include people responsible for keeping invasive pests and plants away from the country, requiring a lot of overtime work. Rosario-Lebron said the union has managed it to a large extent.
"You have some employees who want to work as much overtime as possible to earn as much money as possible. You have other employees who don't want to die of overwork, so to speak."
Rosario-Lebron said figuring out how to allocate overtime and become a liaison between management and employees may represent the union’s biggest savings for the government.
"I know a lot of managers like it," he said.
Rosario-Lebron said he tried to resolve most disputes outside the formal grievance process. He said there were many times he advised employees not to pursue complaints he considered frivolous.
"I don't recommend you go that route because it won't be very good for you," he said.
He said employees are more likely to listen to unions on such matters.
He has a warning to the Trump administration: Get out of the league and management will be alone.