The union representing nearly 4,000 federal employees working for the U.S. Department of Education filed a complaint this week accusing the agency, run by Betsy DeVos, of union busting.

The complaint, filed with the Federal Labor Relations Authority on Tuesday, comes after the Education Department effectively declared itself free from union mandates by imposing upon the agency’s 3,900 staffers a “collective bargaining agreement” that commands no union agreement at all.

The move is a first, even for the boundary-pushing Trump administration. But DeVos has never been known for having positive relations with teachers unions. For decades prior to her joining the Trump administration, she funded politicians dedicated to weakening organized labor and backed school choice advocacy groups that depicted teachers unions as selfish enemies of deserving children.



On Friday, management officials at the Education Department informed their workers’ union, the American Federation of Government Employees Council 252, that they would no longer be bargaining with them. Instead, management issued a 40-page document the department is calling a “collective bargaining agreement.” This unilateral agreement supposedly took effect on Monday. Education Department staffers have been represented by the AFGE since 1982.

“AFGE did not agree to these unilateral terms,” said Claudette Young, AFGE Council 252 president, in a statement. “The agency has imposed an illegal document that we had absolutely no bargaining over. It’s a total attempt to strip employees of their collective bargaining rights and bust the union. This is an attempt to tie our hands.”



In an interview with The Intercept, AFGE Assistant General Counsel Ward Morrow said it’s “extremely unusual” to have to file a complaint over something like this. “You can’t even call it a ‘collective bargaining agreement’ because it wasn’t collective, it wasn’t bargained, and there was no agreement,” he said.

The new edict seeks to curtail union activity by imposing significant new rules and restrictions on the AFGE. “They take away union office space, all equipment, and we have officers who have already been locked out of the system, who are unable to access files and documents,” Young told The Intercept. Federal laptops, printers, and cellphones assigned to union members must be returned by March 26. Union office space must be vacated by April 11, unless the AFGE wants to start paying fair-market rent for its use.



Staffers who serve as union officers are now also being told that they will no longer receive paid leave for time spent performing union representational duties. “That impacts not only our salaries but our retirements,” said Young.

