PARKERSBURG — A local union representative for federal workers says animosity between the administration and federal employees has reached unparalleled levels under President Donald Trump.

The Treasury Department last week announced it has ended the collective bargaining agreements with the Internal Revenue Service and the Bureau of Fiscal Service according to the executive order by President Donald Trump in March 2025. The Treasury Employees Union sued and got a stay pending appeal. However, a three-judge tribunal in the 9th Circuit Court of Appeals’ ruling on a separate case on Thursday allowed for the government to proceed with the terminations of the agreements.

Among those impacted by the administration’s actions are the employees at the Bureau of Fiscal Service in Parkersburg where about 1,600 of the roughly 2,300 federal workers are in a collective bargaining unit, Eric Engle, chief steward for the local National Treasury Employees Union, said. Nationally, the union represents about 150,000 employees in 37 departments and agencies.

Engle has worked for the department for 12 years and said he has never seen relations so bad. Others with 30 years experience say the same, he said.

Last year, the now-defunct Department of Government Efficiency, headed by Elon Musk, greatly reduced manpower levels.

“Republican or Democrat, we have never seen this level of animosity toward federal employee unions or federal employees themselves,” Engle said.

Collective bargaining rights for federal employees go back to 1962 under President John F. Kennedy, a Democrat, then were expanded by President Richard Nixon, a Republican, and overwhelmingly approved by Congress in a bipartisan consensus, Engle said.

Trump’s executive order in March 2025 increased the number of agencies exempt from collective bargaining, saying their work was essential to national security. He cited a provision in the 1978 Civil Service Reform Act to ban unions at most agencies for national security reasons.

Another executive order by Trump exempted more agencies from collective bargaining. The orders impacted about two thirds of federal workers, according to govexec.com.

The national security argument is far-reaching and is seldomly, if at all, used, Engle said. Challenges in other courts continue, he said.

“These executive orders are still being challenged in the courts,” Engle said.

Doreen P. Greenwald, national president of the National Treasury Employees Union, on Thursday in a letter to Amanda Kupfner, chief administrative officer of the Bureau of Fiscal Service, said the bureau can not lawfully terminate the agreement because the union “remains the exclusive representative of its bargaining unit employees.”

Under law the bureau must maintain its agreement with the union and cannot on its own end the contract with the union, Greenwald said. The bureau must have a collective bargaining agreement with the union, she said.

“And regardless of whether the (bureau) continues to recognize (the union) as the exclusive representative to its bargaining unit employees, there is no dispute that the Federal Labor Relations Authority certified that status, as your memorandum acknowledges, and has taken no action to undo it,” Greenwald said.

Statements from Sens. Shelley Moore Capito and Jim Justice were not immediately available.