A federal order that terminates many collective bargaining agreements with federal workers, particularly in the Department of Defense, could affect the jobs of hundreds of civilian employees at the Portsmouth Navel Shipyard and others in New Hampshire.
The order to end collective bargaining agreements and decertify several unions that protect federal civilian workers comes a year after President Trump issued the first of two executive orders to terminate federal employee union contracts. In February Trump ordered that federal agencies move forward with ending eliminating the union contracts after the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals vacated a preliminary injunction that had blocked the March 2025 order.
The move is the latest in the administration’s effort to shed federal jobs. Since February 2025, New Hampshire has lost nearly 7% of its federal workforce, and the U.S. government’s civilian employment has decreased from around 2.4 million to just more than 2 million.
Last week, Department of Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth notified most of the unions that have contracts with the department that their collective bargaining agreements are terminated, including American Federation of Government Employees and the and United Brotherhood of Carpenters and Joiners, which represent about 800 civilian workers at the Portsmouth Naval Shipyard, in Kittery, Maine.
There’s no information available on how many of those workers live in New Hampshire, but about half of the Shipyard’s 6,100 civilian employees live in the Granite State.
The unions are two out of eight unions that represent workers at the Shipyard. The largest, Local 4 of the International Federation of Professional and Technical Engineers (IFPTE), represents about 2,000 workers. That union still has a court injunction in place to prevent the contract termination.
The February order also affects civilian employees at other military installations, defense department-leased property and General Services Administration-leased buildings. It’s not immediately clear what other New Hampshire federal jobs may be affected. There are about 770,000 civilian employees in the Department of Defense nationwide represented by unions.
‘Will cause material harm’
“This happened very quickly,” Nathan Proper, business representative of United Brotherhood of Carpenters and Joiners Local 3073 told WCSH-TV in Portland. “These types of things typically take a while, but this did not.”
Proper said, “President Trump and Pete Hegseth do not have any idea how unions interface with the facility. It’s really going to cause material harm to the people who are fixing the machines that are enabling us to execute the mission of national defense.”
Union contracts protect workers, ensuring safe working conditions, fair wages, benefits, adequate time away from work, and give workers a grievance structure to bring complaints and concerns without backlash from management.
“Management is now able to make decisions about things that will affect people’s lives without anyone there to protect their interests,” Proper said.
Last April, speaking in favor of a bill in the Maine Legislature that would provide no-interest loans to federal workers during a shutdown, Proper said, “At the shipyard, we maintain the U.S. Navy’s submarine fleet -— vessels critical to our national security. These are high-stakes, technical jobs performed by welders, planners, mechanics, engineers — people who go through years of training and security clearance just to do what they do.”
In the executive order last March and a similar one in August, Trump claims the unions present a national security risk, and that a provision in federal law that gives him authority to end collective bargaining rights at agencies that have national security as a primary function supports the moves.
Aside from terminating collective bargaining rights, the order specifies that it halts workers’ right to grievance, mediation, other court action, and job protection.
The news came to Shipyard workers just weeks after Vice Adm. Richard Seif, commander of U.S. Submarine Forces, visited to engage with shipyard leadership about “critical capability upgrades on current PNSY submarine availabilities.”
“Portsmouth Naval Shipyard is setting the standard for innovation, from modernizing our submarines to pioneering advanced manufacturing,” Seif said at the time. “This shipyard team delivers unmatched dedication to the mission, delivering battle-ready submarines, while providing outstanding support to our sailors and families.”
AFGE President Everett Kelley said last week, “Secretary Hegseth’s decision to terminate the union rights of hardworking individuals who support our military is a cowardly continuation of this administration’s unlawful attack on federal employees’ First Amendment right to belong to a union.
“DOD employees, many of whom are veterans themselves, are the backbone of our military, and taking away their collective voice workforce doesn’t strengthen the mission; it undermines it. For 50 years, these employees have exercised their union rights; under several administrations, during a global pandemic, and throughout peacetime and wartime, including our most recent conflict with Iran. To rip up the union contracts of civilian employees after touting a successful ceasefire in the Middle East is not only a slap in the face to the employees who supported those efforts, but again proves that this action has nothing to do with national security and everything to do with silencing workers’ voices.”
Kelley said that AFGE “has successfully challenged illegal attempts to strip our members of their union rights by terminating their collective bargaining agreements, and we will continue to do so.”
AFGE filed a lawsuit against the March 2025 Executive Order 14251 a year ago. In June, a federal judge granted a preliminary injunction, halting the administration from implementing the order.
While the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals in February vacated that preliminary injunction , the AFGE was successful in in restoring collective bargaining rights of 320,000 VA workers in a similar suit ruled on March 27 in a different court.
U.S. District Court Judge Melissa DuBose ruled the VA contract termination be reversed, finding it was in violation of the First Amendment and the Administrative Procedure Act, and partly motivated by retaliation.
The IFPTE which represents around 2,000 Shipyards workers and many more across the U.S., “will continue to operate as usual,” International President Matt Biggs said.
“It is not surprising, but it is disappointing that Secretary Hegseth took the step to attempt to bust unions across the DOD,” Biggs said in a statement on the union’s website.
He said that while the union’s members are protected by a court injunction, “we also realize that the legal process is a cumbersome one and we are in for the long haul.
“IFPTE’s unions… will continue to represent, continue to grow, and continue to fight,” Biggs said.
IFPTE Secretary-Treasurer Gay Henson said that the union “is in this fight until we win it.”
Henson encouraged the union’s locals to continue to organize ad sign up members, and “understand that unions will survive and thrive despite these attacks.”
NH federal job losses over 12 months
The Department of Defense move to terminate union contracts is the latest over the past year by the Trump administration, which has ended union rights for workers at the VA, the Environmental Protection Agency, U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services, the Federal Emergency Management Agency and the Internal Revenue Service, and more.
According to the federal Office of Personnel Management, union representation in the federal workforces has dropped from 56.4% in February 2025 to 37.7% this February. The federal workforce has been reduced from nearly 2.5 million to just more than 2 million.
New Hampshire has shed 383 federal civilian jobs in the past year, down to 5,129 from 5,512, according to the OPM, for a 6.95% reduction. The agency uses worksite to locate employees, not residence, so that number doesn’t include the approximately 3,000 New Hampshire residents who work at the Portsmouth Naval Shipyard, which is in Maine, or those who work at other federal offices outside of the state. It also doesn’t specify how many of those jobs were union-represented.
Of the federal jobs located in New Hampshire, about 1,431 are at the VA (down from 1,470 in February 2025), and 910 in various branches of the military, with 167 of those specifically in the Defense Department.
Of the 44 federal departments with jobs located in New Hampshire, 25 have fewer employees than a year ago,17 have the same number and two have more.
The biggest federal employment loss in New Hampshire since the federal government began shedding jobs a year ago is at the Department of Agriculture, which has 80 fewer jobs than it did in February 2025, 306 compared to 386. That’s followed by the Treasury Department, which has 54 fewer employees, 143, compared to 197. Both departments were targeted by the Trump administration both in its collective bargaining agreement executive orders and other moves to eliminate jobs and services.
Departments that had employees in February 2025 in New Hampshire, but no longer are staffed at all are the U.S. Agency for International Development (US AID), the Millenium Challenge Corp. (a foreign aid agency that reduces global poverty through economic growth grants), the U.S. Agency for Global Media (which oversees Voice of America and other broadcasting), the Peace Corps, and the Committee for Purchasing from People Who are Blind or Severely Disabled.
The only departments with an increase are Department of Defense, from 162 to 167 jobs, and the Environmental Protection Agency, from five to six jobs.
Maine, where the Shipyard is located, has lost nearly 400 Department of Defense civilian jobs since February 2025, according to the federal Office of Personnel Management. The OPM doesn’t specify what facilities lost jobs, but the Shipyard’s 6,100 civilian employee count is down from 6,500 in 2024. Despite recent job cuts at the Shipyard, its also in the process of hiring 820 workers this fiscal year to meet nuclear submarine maintenance demands.
Maine overall has 8,534 Department of Defense civilian jobs compared to 8,877 a year ago, and has lost 5.64% of all of its federal jobs over the last year, from 13,864 to 13,082.