FDA Policy/General

FDA Cancels Union Session on Layoffs

FDA canceled a scheduled meeting with the National Treasury Employees Union (NTEU), which represents about 9,000 FDA employees, that was to spend five hours discussing the layoffs that hit the agency earlier this year. Union leaders say the agency did not set another date for the meeting, Reuters reports.

In March, President Donald Trump issued an executive order excluding some federal agencies, including FDA, from collective bargaining obligations that he said “have as a primary function intelligence, counterintelligence, investigative, or national security work.” On 4/25, a federal judge issued an injunction blocking implementation of Trump’s order pending the outcome of a suit filed by the union, which represents about 160,000 employees in several agencies. The administration has appealed the injunction.

The union says it was given no reason for the meeting being canceled, and there was no attempt to reschedule it.

NTEU president Anthony Lee said the union had intended to address how FDA staffers were fired and raise union members’ questions about terminations and severance pay, as well as union proposals. “We had maybe four or five pages of proposals to discuss during the meeting,” Lee told the news service.

Reuters reports that although the union’s contract with HHS says the government will provide an opportunity to bargain all impact and implementation issues related to layoffs, NTEU was not given a chance to bargain before the layoffs.

Lee said the administration also canceled a separate, contractually-obligated meeting with the union slated for the same day to discuss issues not typically covered in the collective bargaining agreement.

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