Federal Bureau of Prisons moves to end union protections for its workers

The federal Bureau of Prisons said Thursday it is canceling a collective bargaining agreement with its workers and stripping them of union rights, the latest move by the Trump administration to gut labor protections for federal employees.

Director William K. Marshall III told the agency’s nearly 35,000 employees that the union, the Council of Prison Locals, had become “an obstacle to progress instead of a partner in it.” The contract, he said, “too often slowed or prevented” changes meant to improve safety and morale.

“The whole purpose of ending this contract is to make your lives better,” Marshall wrote in a message posted to the agency’s website. He said the agency will “move forward with solutions that work, without roadblocks, without excuses, and with one goal: to make the Bureau a place where people are proud to serve.”

The union’s president, Brandy Moore-White, said ending the collective bargaining agreement, which was supposed to run through May 2029, will jeopardize the safety and livelihoods of workers who endure dangerous conditions to keep inmates, staff and communities safe.

“We will absolutely fight this tooth and nail!” she said.

The Bureau of Prisons operates 122 facilities and has about 155,000 inmates. It has an annual budget of more than $8.5 billion. The Justice Department’s largest employer, it has been plagued for years by severe understaffing that has led to long overtime shifts and the use of prison nurses, teachers, cooks and other workers to guard inmates.

The agency has a $3 billion repair backlog, thousands of positions are vacant and an official told Congress in February that more than 4,000 beds are unusable because of dangerous conditions like leaking or failing roofs, mold, asbestos or lead.

In a letter Thursday informing Moore-White of the move, Marshall cited a executive order that President Donald Trump signed in March that exempts federal intelligence, counterintelligence, investigative and national security agencies from collective bargaining or recognizing employee labor unions.

A few weeks before Trump signed the executive order, the Department of Homeland Security said it was ending its collective bargaining agreement with Transportation Security Administration employees who screen passengers and baggage at airports and other travel hubs. The union sued and a judge issued a preliminary injunction in June that has kept the contract in place.

Marshall told Moore-White that union dues will no longer be collected and that employees no longer have a right to union representation during meetings with management, investigative interviews or other proceedings.

In his message Thursday to Bureau of Prisons employees, Marshall said that even without a union or collective bargaining pact, they will continue to enjoy robust protections under federal civil service law, including job security and whistleblower rights.

Workers will not be removed, suspended or demoted without cause and due process, he wrote. Pay and benefits, including salary, retirement, health insurance, overtime, leave accrual and uniform allowance are guaranteed by law and will remain unchanged.

“Those safeguards aren’t going anywhere,” Marshall said. “This isn’t about taking things away, it’s about giving you more. More clarity. More fairness. More respect.”

The Bureau of Prisons has been in a state of flux since Trump returned to office in January.

Its mission has been expanded under the Republican’s administration to include taking in thousands of immigration detainees at some of its prisons and jails under an agreement with the Department of Homeland Security.

In May, Trump directed the Bureau of Prisons to rebuild and reopen Alcatraz — the notorious penitentiary on an island in San Francisco Bay that last held inmates more than 60 years ago. Four months later, it remains a tourist attraction.

The Bureau of Prisons last year closed several facilities, in part to cut costs, but it is also in the process of building a new prison in Kentucky. In May, Marshall said the agency was halting some hiring.

An ongoing Associated Press investigation has uncovered deep, previously unreported flaws within the Bureau of Prisons, including rampant sexual abuse, widespread criminal activity by employees, dozens of escapes and the free flow of guns, drugs and other contraband.

Working face to face with killers, sexual predators and other violent criminals, federal prison employees are routinely threatened and harassed, and some have been slashed, stabbed or even killed.

Last year, a mailroom supervisor at the U.S. Penitentiary in Atwater, California, died after opening a letter that prosecutors said was laced with fentanyl and other substances. At the federal prison in Thomson, Illinois, a union official said, female staff members were subject to more than 1,600 instances of sexual harassment and abuse by inmates in a four-year span.