By Ryan Hanrahan, University of Illinois’ FarmDoc project
Reuters’ Leah Douglas reported that “the U.S. Department of Agriculture moved to terminate union contracts with thousands of employees of its animal health and food safety inspection agencies, according to documents seen by Reuters, as one union on Wednesday challenged the firings in court.”
“The notices sent to union leaders at the Animal and Plant Health Inspection Service and Food Safety and Inspection Service on Tuesday evening said the action was aligned with President Donald Trump’s March executive order to exclude some federal workers from collective bargaining because their agencies have national security missions, the documents show,” Douglas reported. “The Trump administration also has moved to end union contracts at the Environmental Protection Agency, Department of Veterans Affairs and other agencies under the executive order.”
“About 6,500 food and consumer safety inspectors at FSIS were covered by the terminated collective bargaining agreement, said Paula Soldner, chairperson of the National Joint Council of Food Inspection Locals, part of the American Federation of Government Employees,” Douglas reported. “FSIS employees inspect meat, poultry and egg products to assess quality and prevent foodborne illness.”
“Roughly 1,500 APHIS employees who inspect plants for pests and disease will be affected by a notice terminating their bargaining agreement, according to the National Association of Agriculture Employees,” Douglas reported. “…At least another 150 APHIS employees in a second agency union will also be affected, said a source familiar with the situation.”
Government Executive’s Erich Wagner reported that “food inspectors are already experiencing growing workloads due to understaffing, in part thanks to multiple rounds of the deferred resignation program, (Paula Schelling Soldner, chairwoman of the National Joint Council of Food Inspection Locals within the American Federation of Government Employees) said. That likely will get worse without formal recognition of the union.”
“‘If we’re short staffed, those employees simply will not be able to spend the time required at each plant,’ she said,” according to Wagner’s reporting. “‘If I’m assigned to cover eight plants in an eight-hour day, and I have travel 100 miles within those three plants, I’m just stopping and doing the bare minimum of work. I’m not seeing how they’re processing the food, I’m not able to observe and monitor the temperature of cooked or raw product. Ultimately, that will be the harm to the public.'”
What Trump’s Executive Order Says
Federal News Network’s Drew Friedman reported that “the union contract terminations come after the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals last week granted the Trump administration’s request to stay a lower court’s preliminary injunction. In effect, the appeals court decision allowed agencies to move forward with implementing President Donald Trump’s March executive order to cancel union contracts at a majority of federal agencies.”
“Trump’s anti-union executive order from March sought to eliminate collective bargaining at most federal agencies,” Friedman reported. “The order made use of a narrow legal provision that allows the President to suspend collective bargaining for national security reasons.”
“Federal unions quickly sued the Trump administration over the anti-union executive order. They maintain that Trump’s order was a form of retaliation for the labor organizations’ First Amendment protected speech. That claim was based, in part, on a White House fact sheet that said Trump signed the order because unions were ‘hostile’ toward his policies,” Friedman reported. “The appeals court, however, determined that based on the language of the executive order itself, the president likely would have terminated the union contracts anyway, even if the federal unions’ constitutionally protected speech wasn’t an issue.”
Unions Say They Don’t Have National Security Responsibilities
Government Executive’s Erich Wagner reported that “in addition to some of the same claims seen in previous lawsuits challenging Trump’s anti-union executive order, such as violations of the First and Fifth amendments, Richard Hirn, an attorney representing the labor group, said the (USDA) plant inspectors wanted to highlight just how ‘absurd’ it is to strip them of their collective bargaining rights under the guise of national security.”
“While a portion of APHIS’ work once touched on national security issues–inspecting plants and animals that arrive at U.S. ports of entry–that has not been the case in more than 20 years,” Wagner reported. “The 2002 law creating the Homeland Security Department excised those functions from APHIS and placing them within U.S. Customs and Border Protection, an agency not covered by the president’s executive order.”
“Paula Schelling Soldner, chairwoman of the National Joint Council of Food Inspection Locals within the American Federation of Government Employees, had a similar response to the notion that FSIS employees are engaged in national security work,” Wagner reported. “‘The only ‘secure’ thing here is the system where all of the food inspection data is kept, and if you want information from it, you have to FOIA it,’ she said. ‘If you meet the criteria, they’ll give you that info. That’s security, but how is that national security? Everything else of what we do is an open book.'”
