EPA union sues management over contract termination

A union representing workers at the Environmental Protection Agency became the latest labor group to sue agency leadership over the 2025 cancellation of its collective bargaining agreement, alleging that EPA violated both its members’ First Amendment Rights and a law requiring the federal government conduct reasoned decision-making.

The American Federation of Government Employees Council 238 represents around 8,000 workers at the EPA, one of the more than two dozen agencies targeted by President Trump’s 2025 executive orders banning collective bargaining on national security grounds. EPA management terminated its contract with the labor group in August 2025, after a federal appellate court lifted an injunction blocking its implementation upon AFGE locals but before the Office of Personnel Management amended guidance to greenlight such an action.

While efforts challenging the legality of Trump’s executive orders have largely stalled in federal appellate courts, the union’s lawsuit, filed Tuesday in the U.S. District Court for Massachusetts, mirrors other cases that scrutinized agencies’ implementation of those edicts. Success in those cases have come from a combination of discrete alleged First Amendment violations at those agencies, as well whether management has fulfilled its duty under the Administrative Procedure Act to provide a reasonable explanation for its decision.

“Supreme Court precedent makes clear that even if the [executive] order was lawful, a question not raised in this case, and even if EPA was not legally required to maintain a CBA with the union, the agency had to comply with the APA’s reasoned decision-making requirements in terminating the existing agreement,” AFGE’s lawsuit states. “Moreover, under no circumstances is the agency permitted to terminate the CBA in order to suppress protected speech or retaliate against those who voiced concerns over the administration’s policies.”

In its filing, the union accused the agency of waiting to mete out discipline against employees who signed a June 2025 open letter criticizing EPA Administrator Lee Zeldin’s leadership of the agency for nearly two months until after management terminated the CBA so that provisions protecting employees’ scientific integrity and governing disciplinary procedures would no longer apply.

“They just didn’t want to face any accountability in front of the Federal Labor Relations Authority or a third-party arbitrator, quite frankly,” said Justin Chen, president of AFGE Council 238. “Had this happened with the recognition of our union contract, we would have filed grievances on behalf of all of these people, taken them to an arbitrator and then the FLRA. So there was no accountability in terms of labor standards or employees’ statutory labor rights.”

Union officials said agency leaders continue to chill protected speech by employees, both on and off duty. The agency has begun requiring union officials, who previously would have performed representational work using official time, to request authorization to do union-related work on their own time. Chen said that although he is unaware of any instances when the agency has rejected a request, it has caused friction in otherwise day-to-day workplace interactions.

“The agency has at times taken a nearly limitless view of [union activities] in an attempt to silence speech by plaintiffs,” the lawsuit states. “[AFGE] Local 704 President Nicole Cantello was summoned by agency management and directed to answer questions about a conversation she had during her lunch hour with a longtime friend and coworker on the ground that it constituted a ‘union meeting.’”

Chen described management’s insistence that there is “no union at EPA,” while closely policing union officials in the workplace, is borne of a “Kafkian contradiction.”

“There’s this heightened suspicion; someone’s a local president but we’re also just colleagues and friends with the people in our union,” he said. “Not every conversation is a consultation that would require official time, but they bring it up and try to make an issue out of it. Like, fine, you don’t recognize the union, but why are you attacking us, claiming we’re trying to use official time? I thought we don’t exist in your eyes.”