09-08-2025
EPA axes contracts with unions
EPA on Friday canceled contracts with a host of unions, including the America Federation of Government Employees, the largest labor organization representing staffers from the agency, according to a letter viewed by POLITICO's E&E News.
In the memo to staffers, the agency said it was canceling the contracts to align with an executive order that President Donald Trump signed in March barring collective bargaining at more than two dozen agencies and subagencies based on national security concerns, as well as a recent court ruling from the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals.
Bob Coomber, EPA's senior labor adviser, said the reason for terminating the contracts was "to prevent irreparable harm to national security." He referred not only to the contract with AFGE, but also to ones with the National Association of Government Employees, Engineers and Scientists of California, and the National Association of Independent Labor.
Justin Chen, the president of AFGE Council 238, which represents more than 8,000 EPA workers, said in a statement that the union was planning to legally challenge the agency's decision to cut the contracts.
'The Trump administration and EPA's unlawful and authoritarian move to unilaterally strip EPA workers of their collective bargaining agreement and workplace rights is nothing short of an assault on our democracy, the rule of law, and the lives of working people in America," said Chen. "When you strip the rights of EPA workers, you weaken the EPA's ability to do its job and ensure Americans can drink clean water and breathe clean air — and that's exactly what Trump, [EPA Administration Lee] Zeldin, and their billionaire supporters want."
When asked about the agency's move, an EPA spokesperson said it was done to comply with federal law and Trump's directives.
'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,' said the spokesperson.
EPA in its email referenced Trump's March 27 order, as well as a decision from a federal appeals court issued earlier this month that paved the way for Trump to end collective bargaining for employees at the Interior and Energy departments, EPA, and other agencies, even as unions are challenging the changes in court.
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.
