GREENBELT, Md.—Some 23 union locals—20 from the Government Employees (AFGE) and three from the National Federation of Federal Employees/IAM—sued Trump War/Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth in federal court in Greenbelt, Md., on July 2 to restore their union contracts.
The locals represent at least 62,000 workers combined, including 60,000-plus in AFGE and 2,169 in NFFE. The lawsuit says that after delaying for a year and with literally 24 hours’ notice and no reason given except “national security,” Hegseth canceled all the contracts. Many had lasted for decades.
The locals range in size from one representing all 35,000-plus civilian workers for the Marine Corps worldwide down to two civilian workers at an Air Force base in Fairbanks, Alaska.
The short notice—to some locals, none at all—violates federal civil service law and the Administrative Procedures Act. That law mandates that when an agency takes a major action, such as this mass cancellation, it must give out advance notice and provide a public comment period, too.
Instead, a common notice got this reaction from one union local’s website: “Officers and supervisors: Stop telling our members ‘There is no union!’”
Unlike other federal worker lawsuits against the anti-labor GOP Donald Trump regime, this suit does not challenge the Trump executive order Hegseth claims he’s following. It only declares Hegseth broke the law in doing so and demands a permanent injunction ordering him to restore the contracts.
In their court papers, NFFE and AFGE say the abrupt cancellations caused complete chaos among the department’s civilian workers, whom the contracts cover. And that in turn harms national security, AFGE President Everett Kelley and NFFE President Randy Erwin contend. Both presidents are military veterans.
Hegseth says he’s following a year-old executive order from his boss, right-wing GOP President Donald Trump. The unions retort that he’s even misinterpreting that.
Hegseth’s termination of the union contracts is in line with Trump’s larger campaign to demoralize and decimate the federal workforce. That campaign has resulted in 317,000-plus workers being fired or RIFed since Trump’s second inauguration on Jan. 20, 2025, Trump’s imposition of an expanded group of political appointees in what were senior civil service positions, and numerous lawsuits, most of which unions have won in lower federal courts.
It’s also produced a new federal job application where people seeking federal jobs have to list Trump regime goals they agree with, and tell how they would carry them out.
And a year after Trump fired 550 of the 4,500 workers at the National Weather Service—workers who tracked severe thunderstorms, hurricanes, and tornadoes and alerted affected areas to the looming danger—a group of ex-NWS staffers established their own early-warning system. It relies on voluntary donations from users to buy equipment and pay its volunteers.
“The Department of Defense’s termination of AFGE contracts, carried out under Pete Hegseth’s unlawful directive, is an insult to the hardworking men and women who serve our military. I am proud to stand with AFGE’s affiliates fighting for their rights. In many cases, the affiliates have had contracts in place for more than 50 years before they were unlawfully terminated,” AFGE President Kelley said.
“In attacking DoD civilian employees, the administration is attacking veterans, military families, and the workers our warfighters rely on every day. This not only makes America less safe; it is antithetical to our values as a nation.”
“For decades, workers at the Department of Defense have had the right to unionize, and employees exercising that right have never been detrimental to U.S. national security,” NFFE President Erwin said.
“The Trump administration unilaterally and illegally stripping collective bargaining rights from DoD workers only serves to weaken morale, harm recruitment and retention, and reduce accountability – jeopardizing our national security and the critical mission of the agency. NFFE locals are proud to join their AFGE brothers and sisters in challenging the cancellation of their collective bargaining agreements, and we are confident the rule of law will prevail.”
While the lawsuit did not give specific examples of the threat to national security which Hegseth invoked and which Kelley questioned, it said War/Defense Department supervisors often “just went ‘radio silent,’” or “wouldn’t answer routine questions” from local union leaders and reps.
“Secretary Hegseth’s memorandum begat a firestorm of confusion and misinformation at facilities nationwide—about who still did or did not have collective bargaining agreements, and why, and since when,” the suit says. That’s because Hegseth exempted military police and firefighters from the abolition of contracts, but some local officers didn’t get the message and abolished those pacts, too.
”That’s a completely false message, since unions are private membership organizations, the government has no power to disband.”
No hearing date has been set yet for the suit.
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