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Engle: Union offices for Bureau of Fiscal Service members locked

An automatic door closes at the entrance to a Bureau of the Fiscal Service office off of Market Street in Parkersburg. (Photo by Evan Bevins)

PARKERSBURG — A union representative for employees at the federal Bureau of the Fiscal Service in Parkersburg said the ability for the union to represent its members is being hampered by the administration of President Donald Trump.

Eric Engle, chief steward of National Treasury Employees Union Chapter 190, which represents workers at the local bureau offices, said their union offices in both bureau buildings at Avery and Third streets in downtown Parkersburg have been shut down, locked up and union officials are not able to access them to conduct union business.

Also, union dues are not being collected through the payroll process — and have not been for a while, Engle said, adding they cannot accept grievance filings, and all grievances that have been filed have been suspended.

A case is working its way through the District of Columbia District Court, National Treasury Employees Union (NTEU) vs. Trump, where union officials said Trump signed an executive order Jan. 20, 2025, that attempts to strip civil service and due process protections from a large swath of federal employees, including many NTEU represents.

Engle said they are awaiting this case to be worked through the courts, which could lead to appeals all the way to the U.S. Supreme Court. He said although the unions have not been officially decertified, the end result has had the same impact as the unions cannot serve members.

The Bureau in Parkersburg has a workforce of around 2,200-2,300 where around 1,600 are bargaining unit employees who are eligible to join the union. Of those 1,600, as of the end of 2024, they had around 500-600 union members, Engle said.

Trump made an executive order March 27 on national security grounds that excluded two-thirds of the federal workforce from collective bargaining rights, Engle said, adding on April 25 a federal district judge issued an injunction on the executive order Trump had made in March.

A three-judge panel of the D.C. Court of Appeals in May decided 2-1 to lift that injunction and allow enforcement of the executive order for the time being as things play out in court.

“They did that on the grounds that no collective bargaining rights had actually been eliminated yet,” Engle said. “No unions had been decertified and none of the agreements had been eliminated, but effectively that is exactly what they have done.

“We can’t file grievances, we can’t represent our members on paid time like we used to.”

They have to wait to see how the case plays out in court, he said.

“It depends on who prevails,” Engle said. “If the union prevails then we would be able to maintain our collective bargaining rights and carry out the labor agreements, have dues collected through payroll and have everything restored.

“If not, the administration gets its way and the union would basically cease to exist. We would lose our collective bargaining rights. All our chapters at the Treasury would lose their bargaining rights and we would have to decertify our unions.”

The union would become what it once was prior to 1962, a volunteer service organization for federal employees, he said.

All of the collective bargaining rights afforded by the Civil Service Reform Act in 1978 would be gone until a future president or Congress would act to restore them, he said.

“Our collective bargaining rights are used to negotiate a master/labor agreement every five years,” Engle said. “Those agreements spell out employee rights for safe and accommodating work places, things like if a reduction in force is issued it breaks down how that is supposed to go.

“Collective bargaining rights are absolutely essential for guaranteeing federal employees the respect they are due and the rights they deserve as Civil Service protections provided for by law,” he said.

These actions are also impacting administrative bodies such as the Merit System Protection Board, the Federal Labor Relations Authority, the National Labor Relations Board and all the administrative bodies that handle disputes, violation of the merit system, violation of equal opportunity employment rights and more, he said.

“We are seeing those bodies basically kneecapped and made irrelevant and unable to carry out their missions,” Engle said. “It only leaves the federal court system for any kind of redress and recourse.

“It is going to flood the federal court system with litigation if these bodies cannot operate the way they were intended by law and by Congress.”

Engle said it would be a threat to civil service protections as a whole by attempting to reclassify a large number of federal employees as “at will employees” who would be easier to let go and basically would be allowed to serve solely by the executive branch based on loyalty to a president.

The law was designed so civil service jobs would be non-partisan, Engle said.

Wayne Clements, president of National Treasury Employees Union Chapter 190, said he watched the people come and change the locks on the union offices at the bureau. They received warning it was happening a couple of days before and in accordance with the executive order.

“It is confirmed, they have locked us out,” he said. “It was not only a surprise to myself, but the national union as well.”

Although they might not be able to do what they have been, they plan to continue to support their members, Clements said.

“Yes we are locked out, but we still have means of communication with our members and getting messages out to our members,” he said. “We will continue to do that.”

If the courts rule in their favor everything will go back and the union will continue as it has. If not, the union will continue to work for the benefit of its membership, Clements said, adding they are prepared to fight throughout the term of this administration.

“We will make sure we will be able to support the membership and protect federal employees’ rights,” he said. “It may not be at the same capacity, but we will never stop fighting for the members and the federal employees.

“We will always put them first.”

Officials in the offices of U.S. Sens Jim Justice, R-W.Va., and Shelley Moore Capito, R-W.Va., said they have not heard anything about this happening. Officials with U.S. Rep. Riley Moore, R-W.Va., did not return an email seeking comment on the matter. Messages left with Fiscal Service media relations and the Treasury Department were also not returned.

Brett Dunlap and Wayne Towner can be reached at bdunlap@newsandsentinel.com and wtowner@newsandsentinel.com

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