1. United States
2. Mo.
3. Letter

I am writing because I am deeply disturbed by yet another action from this administration that appears designed to weaken federal employees’ collective bargaining rights and make it increasingly difficult for workers to challenge unlawful or improper actions by their agencies. Government Executive is now reporting that the Federal Mediation and Conciliation Service has changed its regulations to give itself the ability to make so-called “threshold determinations” before providing arbitrators in federal labor disputes. This follows an earlier policy under which FMCS stopped appointing arbitrators in certain grievances involving agencies affected by President Trump’s executive orders targeting collective bargaining. This should alarm every member of Congress who believes in due process, checks and balances, and the rule of law. Federal employees have negotiated collective bargaining agreements. Those agreements contain grievance and arbitration procedures for a reason. When management violates a contract, employees and their unions must have a meaningful avenue to challenge those actions. An administration should not be able to weaken that process simply because arbitrators are issuing decisions it does not like. And that is precisely what makes the timing of this change so troubling. Government Executive reports that unions have recently been winning arbitration cases involving actions such as the cancellation of telework and the firing of probationary employees. Now the very process that allows those disputes to reach independent arbitrators is being restricted. At what point does Congress say enough? Russell Vought and this administration have spent enormous energy attacking the federal workforce, weakening unions, diminishing collective bargaining rights, eliminating jobs, restructuring agencies, and attempting to expand presidential control over a professional civil service that was deliberately designed to serve the American people rather than the political interests of any one president. Federal employees are not political pawns. They are not an enemy of the United States government. They ARE the United States government workforce. They process Social Security benefits, care for veterans, protect our borders, inspect our food, respond to disasters, administer federal programs, enforce our laws, and perform countless other functions Americans rely upon every single day. There is something profoundly wrong with an administration repeatedly changing the rules and dismantling institutional safeguards whenever those safeguards interfere with its agenda. Congress created many of these labor protections. Congress created the federal labor relations framework. Congress therefore has both the authority and the responsibility to defend it. I am asking you to publicly condemn these attacks on federal workers and collective bargaining rights and to use your authority as a member of Congress to demand accountability from this administration and Russell Vought. I am also asking you to support legislation that restores and protects federal employees’ collective bargaining rights, including the Protect America’s Workforce Act, and to oppose attempts to allow any administration to unilaterally strip federal employees of rights Congress provided them. This should not be a partisan issue. A future Democratic president should not have unchecked authority to dismantle protections established by Congress simply because that administration finds them inconvenient either. Congress is a coequal branch of government. Please start acting like one. Federal employees deserve due process. They deserve independent arbitration. They deserve collective bargaining rights that cannot simply disappear when an administration dislikes the outcome. And Americans deserve a federal government governed by law, not by the whims of whoever happens to occupy the White House. I urge you to stand up for the federal workforce, defend the laws Congress enacted, and put an end to this administration’s systematic erosion of federal employees’ rights.