Trump destroys federal employee unions one step at a time: NPR

Shaarda Fornnarino got news in early August.

The Ministry of Old Warriors Affairs had ended almost all collective negotiation agreements. The Agency gave trade unions only days out of federal buildings.

“We entered the weekend, and we have emptied the space of our office,” says Fernarino, a nurse of outpatient clinics at the Rocky Mountain Regional Center at the Medical Center outside Denver, where she is also working as a local director of national nurses United.

Federal employees have had the right to join unions and collective bargaining for working conditions since the 1960s. Unlike private sector workers, government employees cannot negotiate wages or strike. But through collective negotiation, they help to form disciplinary procedures, parental leave policies, and how additional work is managed and much more.

Workers give an opinion on the workplace policies, thinking leads to less friction in the workplace and the most effective government.

But President Trump has abandoned this idea. Instead, he argued that federal employee unions pose a threat to the country. In March, he issued an executive order ending collective negotiation rights for more than a million federal workers in about 20 federal agencies. Almost immediately, many agencies have stopped automatic deductions of the union’s dues from employee checks, reduced the crucial source of cash flow to unions. Immediately before Labor Day, Trump issued a new executive, adding about half of the decorations of agencies to the list.

The unions filed lawsuits, claiming that Trump is missing due to the opposition of parts of his agenda. The minimum courts suspended a temporary matter; The government appealed.

Then the Appeal Courts said that the Trump administration could advance as the litigation continues, noting the unique responsibility of the president for protecting national security. In their rulings, the judges noticed that the Trump administration told the agencies not to end the collective negotiation agreements during the litigation.

But last month, the administration sent updated agencies, and told them that it could be able to end most of the Federation contracts – not only those who have the National Treasury Union, due to the continuous litigation. So far, it has canceled nine contracts, according to the American Union of government employees.

In late August, a judge at the Court of Appeal in the ninth district called for a vote on whether education should be made to the case, by a committee of 11 judges. This vote can happen this month.

“I hope that the opposite will be reversed,” says Fornarino.

Conflicts over time spend well

As a representative of the elected federation, fornnarino spent a time to defend more training for nurses, especially those who have been put forward in various sections, and promoting safety in the job.

“We were able to put some protection at their nursing station, and increase the presence of the VA police in both the emergency room and the psychological unit,” she says.

Fernarino says the changes have benefited from nurses and old warriors who serve. But VA sees this differently. The agency noted that last year, the staff of the barn unit such as Fornnarino spent 750,000 hours of the time the taxpayer was funded on the activities of the Federation.

“With the absence of collective obligations to bargain, these hours can now be used to serve the old warriors instead of union heads,” said the Ministry of Old Warriors Affairs. A press release announces the termination of the contract.

Fernarino mocks this proposal. “Really, I feel this is a kind of advertising,” she says.

National security concerns are implemented unevenly

On his executive orders in March and August, Trump relies on a ruling in federal law that gives him the authority to end collective negotiation rights in agencies that have national security as an initial function. Former presidents used this power slightly. Trump applies it to a wide range 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 the besieged American voice.

The logical basis of the president is that national security hurts when unions are able to obstruct administration. in A “Fact Newspaper” issued alongside the executive order for the month of MarchThe White House cited many legal challenges brought by the unions. “Some federal unions have declared war on President Trump’s agenda,” the document said.

It is worth noting that the executive order excludes the agencies that supported it, including those that represent law enforcement employees, customs and border protection.

This is particularly wandering to the Ministry of Agriculture employee Cole Gandhi, who trains CBP workers stationed in entry ports on how to examine agricultural imports for pests.

“They have to know how to find mistakes, how to collect them, and how to present them to identify another person,” says Gandhi, who is also head of the National Association of Agricultural Services.

CBP employees still have their union rights while Gandy members in Nae, including people who define those errors in the ports, do not do so.

In fact, they are all used to be part of the same union, but inspectors in the ports were stopped after the September 11 attacks, because their role was necessary for national security.

“They are the first line of defense against terrorism in the United States,” says Gandhi.

NAAE and other unions referred to these contradictions in their lawsuits. During the continued litigation, Gandhi tried to assure the members that this is not the end.

“We will fight to be a union so that we cannot anymore,” says Gandhi.

Fears of brain migration

Throughout the federal government, some workers are not waiting for them to find out what is happening. They are now resigning, after they decided that a government job is no longer worth it anymore. Many workers are afraid of unions, and they will not have an opinion on issues such as remote work or family vacation policies that make a difference in the quality of their lives.

“Although they came to the federal government because of their passion for public service, they also came because of the government’s flexibility, and only that flexibility is eliminated,” says Anthony Lee, a food and drug employee for a long time.

Although the FDA has not yet ended, it ordered the union to fill its offices.

He tells me that the government is losing chemists, poison scientists, engineers, and others who guarantee safe and safe medicines and medical devices and food ingredients are not toxic.

He tells me: “It is indeed, in my opinion, is harmful to the audience because we lose that institutional knowledge. We are losing the experience of this topic.” “As much as the current administration believes that everyone can be replaced quickly, it is no.”