Four Labor Unions representing U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) Employees - joined by Non-Profit Organizations and Cities and Counties from across the country, have filed a new lawsuit in the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of California to stop the Trump administration from implementing an unlawful reorganization of the USDA.

The complaint names the USDA and Secretary Brooke Rollins as defendants and an accompanying renewed motion for a preliminary injunction asks the Court to halt imminent forced relocations of Employees that are part of a reorganization, a reorganization the Agency has proceeded with despite Congress expressly prohibiting such action absent Congressional approval.

The USDA has already begun forcing Employees to choose between forced relocation or the loss of their jobs.

The Union plaintiffs are the; American Federation of Government Employees (AFGE); the American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees (AFSCME); the National Federation of Federal Employees; and the National Treasury Employees Union (NTEU).

Together, the four Unions speak for USDA Employees in nearly every corner of the Department this reorganization touches.

The full coalition also includes: the County of Santa Clara, California; the City and County of San Francisco, California; Prince George’s County, Maryland; the Alliance of Crop, Soil and Environmental Science Societies; the American Geophysical Union; the Coalition to Protect America’s National Parks; NRDC (Natural Resources Defense Council); and the Western Watersheds Project.

The coalition filed this separate lawsuit pursuant to an order Judge Susan Illston had issued in AFGE v. Trump, the coalition’s broader challenge to the Administration’s unlawful reshaping of the Federal Government.

The Coalition prepared and filed this lawsuit and renewed request for preliminary relief just days after Judge Illston held in AFGE v. Trump that these claims merited their own case.

The USDA’s unlawful plan would close or sharply cut capacity at offices and facilities across the Department - and it would gut the Beltsville Agricultural Research Center, the Nation’s premier Agricultural Research Facility.

It moves the Forest Service Headquarters from Washington, D.C. to Salt Lake City, closes all nine Forest Service Regional Offices and shuts 23 research locations across 15 States.

The plan would also close five of seven Regional Offices of the Food and Nutrition Administration (FNA) and require Employees to relocate across the country, undermining the efficient administration of critical nutrition programs like the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program and Special Supplemental Nutrition Program for Women, Infants and Children.

It also ships Foreign Agricultural Service Employees - whose work focuses on international trade - to Kansas City and relocates Rural Development and Farm Production and Conservation national functions away from the national capital region.

AFGE National President Everett Kelley said: “On behalf of the tens of thousands of USDA Employees AFGE represents, I am urging the court to put an immediate halt to this illegal and disruptive reorganization. USDA Employees keep our food safe, stand behind our farmers, make sure our children are fed and keep thousands of American businesses running. Instead of investing in these Public Servants, this Administration wants to dismantle the USDA and gut the workforce that our country depends on.”

To Continue Reading This Labor News Report, Go To: AFGE | Unions Lead Filing of New Lawsuit to Stop USDA Reorganization