August 15, 2025 – The U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) has moved to cancel contracts with union employees at its food safety and animal health inspection agencies, which union leaders say will lead to a loss of staff and weaker food safety protections.
The agency notified union leaders representing the Food Safety and Inspection Service (FSIS) and Animal and Plant Health Inspection Service (APHIS) Tuesday that it intends to end contracts for thousands of employees, according to documents reviewed by Civil Eats.
The Trump administration has also moved to end union contracts at other federal agencies under a March executive order that excludes some workers from collective bargaining if their agencies have national security missions.
Already, the National Association of Agriculture Employees, which represents APHIS employees in the Plant Protection and Quarantine division, has filed a lawsuit in a U.S. district court to regain collective bargaining rights for the 1,500 affected APHIS employees. The union argues in the lawsuit that APHIS employees’ work does not involve national security, as most of these functions were moved to Customs and Border Protection through the Homeland Security Act of 2002.
At FSIS, approximately 6,500 employees were under the union contract and will be impacted by the move, said Paula Soldner, chairwoman of the National Joint Council of Food Inspection Locals, which is part of the American Federation of Government Employees.
FSIS largely regulates meat, poultry, and processed egg products, while FDA inspectors oversee produce and other products in the food supply.
Soldner said FSIS is short-staffed, and she’s concerned that canceled contracts will push more inspectors to leave, particularly as the USDA rolls out a major reorganization. “People are going to want to leave in droves,” she said.
Soldner said the move could have a chilling effect that diminishes food safety. Inspectors make determinations about whether an animal, product, or facility are up to code and safe for consumption. Without union protections, if a higher-up disagrees with a determination, that could be “career ending” for inspectors, making them hesitant to reject contaminated products, she added.
Members of the Safe Food Coalition, which consists of consumer, labor and public health groups, echoed this concern in a statement urging the Trump administration to leave union contracts for FSIS inspectors intact.
“Without union protections, government inspectors will be less likely to hold accountable meatpacking and agribusiness companies—many of which have deep ties to the administration,” said Thomas Gremillion, director of food policy at Consumer Federation of America.
Brian Ronholm, food safety expert for Consumer Reports, said FSIS has long struggled to recruit and retain the necessary inspectorate, and the move to end union contracts could exacerbate these challenges.
“An announcement like this that undermines their work just really contributes to diminishing the confidence of what kind of food safety system we’re going to have in place in a few years,” Ronholm said.
House Agriculture Committee Ranking Member Angie Craig (D-Minnesota) also criticized the move, saying in a statement that it increases the chances of future outbreaks by “undermining the health and safety of our nation’s food system.” (Link to this post.)
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