Trump is decimating federal employee unions one step at a time : NPR
Sharda Fornnarino is an outpatient nurse at Rocky Mountain Régional Va Medical Center in Aurora, Colorado, where she is also a local director of National Nurses United. In August, the Veterans Department informed the members of the union which it ended almost all of its collective negotiation agreements.
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Sharda Fornnarino had the news in early August.
The veterans department ended almost all of its collective negotiation agreements. The agency gave unions a few days to get out of federal buildings.
“We went on the weekend and emptied our office space,” said Fornnarino, nurse in ambulatory surgery at Rocky Mountain Régional Va Medical Center outside Denver, where she is also a local director for National Nurses United.
Federal employees have the right to join unions and to negotiate collectively on working conditions since the 1960s. Unlike private sector workers, government employees cannot negotiate wages or strike. But thanks to collective negotiations, they help shape disciplinary procedures, parental leave policies, how overtime is managed and much more.
Giving workers a word to say in workplace policies, thought goes, leads to less friction in the workplace and a more effective government.
But President Trump abandoned this idea. Instead, he argued that federal employees’ unions represent a danger to the country. In March, he published a decree putting an end to collective negotiation rights for more than a million federal workers in approximately 20 federal agencies. Almost immediately, many agencies have interrupted the automatic deductions of union checks for employees’ pay checks, reducing a critical source of cash flow to unions. Just before the Labor Day, Trump published a new decree, adding about half a dozen agencies to the list.
The unions have filed prosecution, alleging that Trump retaliated against them for opposite parts of his program. The lower courts temporarily interrupted the March order; The government has appealed.
Two courts of appeal then declared that the Trump administration could move forward while disputes continue, citing the president’s sole responsibility to protect national security. In their decisions, the judges noted that the Trump administration had told the agencies not to end the collective negotiation agreements while the disputes were underway.
But last month, the administration sent advice up -to -date agencies, telling them that they could move forward with the termination of most union contracts – but not those who have the union of national treasury employees due to an in progress. To date, nine agencies have canceled contracts, according to the American Federation of Government employees.
At the end of August, a judge of the 9th Circuit Court of Appeals called for a vote to find out if the case should be repeated in the bench, by a panel of 11 judges. This vote could occur this month.
“I hope this will be reversed,” explains Fornnarino, while recognizing that for the moment, their union protections have disappeared.
Disputes in time well spent
As a union representative, Fornnarino spent time defending improved security in the workplace and more training for nurses.
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As a representative of the elected union, Fornnarino spent time defending more training for nurses, in particular those who are floated towards different departments and increased safety at work.
“We were able to do protections at their nursing station, increasing the presence of the police goes to emergencies and psychological unity,” she said.
Fornnarino says that the changes have benefited the nurses and the veterans they serve. But the VA sees it differently. The agency noted that last year, employees of the negotiation unit as fornnarino spent 750,000 hours of time funded by taxpayers in union activities.
“Without collective negotiations obligations, these hours can now be used to serve veterans instead of the Union’s bosses,” said the VA in a press release announcing the termination of the contract.
Fornnarino makes fun of this suggestion. “Really, I feel like it’s a kind of propaganda,” she said.
The cars drive by the Rocky Mountain Régional Va Medical Center in Aurora, Colo.
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National security problems are applied unevenly
In his executive orders in March and August, Trump relies on a provision of the federal law which gives him the power to end collective negotiation rights in agencies that have national security as a main function. The former presidents used this authority sparingly. Trump applies it to a large bunch of agencies, including the Environmental Protection Agency, the Ministry of Justice, the National Weather Service and the American agency for the world media, which oversees America’s besieged voice.
The justification of the president is that it harms national security when the unions are able to obstruct management. In an “information sheet” published in parallel with the March decree, the White House cited the many legal challenges that the unions have brought. “Some federal unions have declared war on President Trump’s agenda,” said the document.
The executive decree excludes in particular the agencies that have supported it, including those which represent the application of laws and customs of customs and border protection.
This is particularly exasperating to the employee of the Department of Agriculture, Cole Gandy, who trains CBP workers stationed at entry ports on how to inspect agricultural imports for pests.
“They must know how to find the bugs, how to recover them, how to submit them to identify someone else,” explains Gandy, also president of the National Association of Agriculture Employed.
These CBP employees still have their union rights while Gandy members in Naae, including those who identify the bugs found in the ports, do not do so.
In fact, they were all part of the same union, but the port inspectors were transferred after the attacks of September 11, because their role was considered essential to national security.
“They are the first line of defense against terrorism in the United States,” said Gandy.
Naae and other unions highlighted these inconsistencies in their prosecution. While the disputes continue, Gandy tried to assure the members that it is not the end.
“We are going to fight to be a union until we can no longer,” said Gandy.
Federal employees gather in favor of their employment outside the Federal Kluczynski building in Chicago on March 19. The members of the Syndicate of National Treasury Employees are among the more than a million federal employees who have lost collective negotiation rights, although the agencies have not yet dismissed their union contracts.
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Fears of a brain escape
Through the federal government, some workers are not waiting to see what is going on. They leave now, after having decided that a job of the government was no longer worth it. Many workers fear that the unions will have left, they will not have their say in questions such as telework or family policies that make a difference for their quality of life.
“Although they came to the federal government because of their passion for the public service, they also came because of the flexibility of the government, and these flexibilities are just wiped out,” said Anthony Lee, a long -standing employee of the Food and Drug Administration who is also president of the Nteu Chapter 282, representing some 9,000 FDA employees through the middle of the Atlantic.
Although the FDA has not yet terminated the union’s contract, it ordered the union to do its duties.
Lee says that the government loses chemists, toxicologists, engineers and others that ensure that drugs and medical devices are safe and effective and that food ingredients are not toxic.
“In my opinion, it is already harmful to the public because we lose this institutional knowledge. We lose this expertise in the matter,” explains Lee. “As much as the current administration thinks that everyone is quickly replaceable, they are not.”
