The nation’s largest federal employee union says canceling contracts and cutting jobs undermines readiness and silences the workforce.
WASHINGTON — The American Federation of Government Employees is condemning the Department of Health and Human Services after the agency moved to strip thousands of workers at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and the National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health of their union rights while carrying out sweeping layoffs.
AFGE National President Everett Kelley called the action “illegal and immoral,” saying in a statement it punishes hundreds of thousands of employees who safeguard public health. “Tearing up our contracts is a disservice to every American who benefits from the programs and services our members deliver. But let me be clear: our union isn’t going anywhere.”
The union says HHS notified the press, not unions, that it would decertify bargaining units representing CDC, NIOSH and Food and Drug Administration staff.
The move comes as at least 600 CDC employees are receiving final termination notices following an April restructuring. The cuts include experts in violence prevention, some of whom lost jobs less than two weeks after a gunman opened fire at the CDC campus, killing a police officer.
HHS has said the downsizing is aimed at making agencies more responsive, but union leaders argue gutting contracts and jobs undercuts readiness.
“Canceling our CBAs and gutting our workforce at the same time weakens CDC’s readiness and makes America less safe and less healthy,” Brendan Demich, vice president of AFGE Local 1916 said in the statement. “You cannot cut capacity, silence workers, and then claim you are strengthening public health. Those two positions contradict each other.”
Despite HHS’s actions, AFGE leaders say their unions remain intact and vowed to keep fighting for members.
“Whether or not HHS recognizes us on paper, we will continue standing together, side-by-side as coworkers, to defend our rights and protect the nation’s health,” AFGE Local 3840 Vice President Micah Niemeier-Walsh said.