WASHINGTON – The Trump administration is undermining federal efforts to protect our environment by discarding the contract between the Environmental Protection Agency and its employee union and replacing it with an illegal edict, the American Federation of Government Employees said today.
“The 8,000 employees we represent at EPA are professional civil servants who have dedicated their lives to science and protecting the environment. By trampling on their rights, this administration is showing a blatant disregard not only for these workers but for the very mission of the EPA,” AFGE National President J. David Cox Sr. said.
On July 8, EPA management made the unlawful decision to replace the previously negotiated collective bargaining agreement between the agency and AFGE Council 238 with a management edict that demonstrates outright hostility to union rights, federal employees, and the mission of the EPA. The illegal edict:
Allows management to unilaterally exclude employees from telework, disrupting their lives and schedules;
Prevents AFGE from providing fair representation to employees by slashing the amount of time union representatives can spend representing employees by 75%;
Limits employees’ access to their union representatives by evicting union representatives from the office space currently provided by the agency;
Eliminates many memorandums of understanding and supplemental agreements used to enforce employment laws and policies at the worksite; and
Imposes the contract terms for seven years.
“The 8,000 employees we represent at EPA are professional civil servants who have dedicated their lives to science and protecting the environment. By trampling on their rights, this administration is showing a blatant disregard not only for these workers but for the very mission of the EPA,” AFGE National President J. David Cox Sr. said.
On July 8, EPA management made the unlawful decision to replace the previously negotiated collective bargaining agreement between the agency and AFGE Council 238 with a management edict that demonstrates outright hostility to union rights, federal employees, and the mission of the EPA. The illegal edict:
Allows management to unilaterally exclude employees from telework, disrupting their lives and schedules;
Prevents AFGE from providing fair representation to employees by slashing the amount of time union representatives can spend representing employees by 75%;
Limits employees’ access to their union representatives by evicting union representatives from the office space currently provided by the agency;
Eliminates many memorandums of understanding and supplemental agreements used to enforce employment laws and policies at the worksite; and
Imposes the contract terms for seven years.
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