Unions representing workers at Minneapolis VA, Veterans Medical Center dissolve after Trump order

Federal workers were changing the locks to a union office at the Minneapolis Veterans Medical Center on Tuesday amid the Trump administration’s efforts to cut organized labor from the federal workforce.

The U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs acted swiftly last week after a favorable court ruling allowed it to proceed with a five-month-old executive order by President Donald Trump and dissolve most unions representing its workforce.

Workers had already seized computers on Friday from the Minneapolis VA offices of the American Federation of Government Employees (AFGE) Local 3669.

“I don’t think anyone knew it would happen so soon, if at all,” said Jacob Romans, president of the local union, which represents about 2,100 licensed professionals at the Minneapolis VA, including doctors and nurses.

The AFGE Local 1969 also no longer represents workers at the Minneapolis VA, other than its police officers. Unions representing police and security officers are exempt from the executive order.

The lockout is the latest twist after Trump issued a March executive order directing federal agencies to stop collective bargaining and citing national security to get around the Civil Service Reform Act of 1978, which otherwise protects union contracts. A group of unions representing 1 million workers sued in response, claiming Trump’s order was a form of retaliation over their opposition to his policies and gaining a temporary injunction.

The Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals defied its liberal reputation in an Aug. 1 order and lifted the injunction, arguing the president was going to pursue these changes to organized labor regardless of union political opposition.

The VA in a news release last week said eliminating unions would free up workers and funding “to serve Veterans instead of union bosses.” Nationally, 1,900 union representatives spent more than 750,000 hours of taxpayer-funded work in 2024 on bargaining issues, the release said.

“We’re making sure VA resources and employees are singularly focused on the job we were sent here to do: providing top-notch care and service to those who wore the uniform,” said VA Secretary Doug Collins.

Romans said he is worried about the many good workers who the union represented in disputes with management and are now vulnerable.

“Nobody has bargaining rights anymore,” said Romans, who was working full time as a union representative but expects to return to nursing at the federal hospital if he isn’t dismissed. “We’re all at-will employees right now.”

Romans added that the Minneapolis VA already is understaffed and that this move won’t help. A ProPublica investigation last week found a rising rate of doctors rejecting VA job offers nationwide because of the instability of the federal workforce.