Employees at the Rock Island Arsenal are working without union contracts following an Army announcement Thursday, April 16th, canceling their collective bargaining agreements.
WVIK spoke to an American Federation of Government Employees representative, whose identity will be withheld, since the Army claims that speaking to the media violates Army policy.
The representative states that the CBA termination is impacting the entire Army and will follow at 40 other government agencies, saying it’s a unprecedented situation. They state the AFGE will respond in court, and the 200,000-plus members will outlast the Trump administration.
“We did go through an executive order in the first Trump administration that threw our officers, union reps, out of their offices. That happened on the Arsenal,” The AFGE representative said. “They severely restricted the time we had for representation. So we expected attacks on the unions again in this administration second go round. As far as impact on employees. Depending on each organization and how they approach it, there's no Army guidance on how to approach once the contracts are terminated, how do you do business? I think some of them will continue to use the contracts as a guideline if they completely throw it away and make all kinds of changes. Going to create a lot of morale issues for employees.
“Bottom line, though, as far as AFGE's role, our mission doesn't really change. It becomes more difficult, but it doesn't really impact how we, or what we're supposed to do for representing employees. So it's going to be a challenge going forward. But AFGE has existed since the 1930s, 1932, to be exact. That was before there was any statute that gave us collective bargaining. And we will exist one way or the other. Our members decide if we have a union. So that's kind of our message to our members too. We're here. We're not going away.”
In a joint statement Thursday night, April 16th, Congressman Eric Sorensen (D-17) and Congresswoman Mariannette Miller-Meeks (R-1), who represent the Arsenal, say employees have a right to join a union and negotiate fair wages and are asking the Department of Defence to reconsider the action.
“We will continue to advocate for Rock Island Arsenal employees against this decision to end the Department of War's [Defence’s (It takes an act of Congress to rename a federal department)] collective bargaining agreements,” the joint statement read in part.
In a separate email, a spokesperson for Representative Miller-Meeks said, “Our office remains in contact with the Secretary and remain committed to defending the Arsenal.”
This comes after the Army announced a realignment procedure, Army Matching Command Process, in March to fill vacancies at the Arsenal and other installations.
In response to a letter from Congresswoman Miller-Meeks on March 24th, the Army Secretary’s office claims the initiative, making employees surplus, is intended to determine who can fill open positions and to pull employees from other areas to fill vacancies.
“Over the last year, changes in the Army have led to a significant personnel mismatch, with a surplus of civilian employees in some areas ("faces") and a greater number of critical, unfilled vacancies ("spaces"). This imbalance drives a multi-billion-dollar annual unfunded requirement (UFR) and degrades readiness. To address this, the Army is initiating a data-driven realignment of its civilian workforce. This is a workforce rebalancing, not a Reduction in Force (RIF), designed to get our people in the right places and create a disciplined path back to external hiring,” the letter read in part.
The letter states this is affecting 74 employees. 66 from the Army Sustainment Command (ASC) - 4 from Network Enterprise Center - 2 from Joint Munitions Command (JMC)- and 2 from the U.S. Army Garrison Rock Island Arsenal.
However, the AFGE representative states that the number is far higher, impacting over 150 people.
“[T]hose numbers are based on the FY 2026 personnel authorizations and they're not based on the FY 27. So the FY 27 authorizations allowed personnel levels for ASC and JMC are actually lower. So that means the surplus employees are higher,” the AFGE representative said.
The Army claims this is to avoid reduction-in-force measures, but states that if employees decline new positions, they will be offered early retirement or severance pay, pending appeals.
“They have said if you turn down an offer that you will likely be terminated though. So if you don't accept. It's called Management Directed Reassignment (MDR),” AFGE representative said. “If you don't accept that, then likely they'll take action to terminate you. And that'll probably happen within about 60 days time.”
“I know that there are close to 400 people that were notified their jobs would change at ASC and JMC. Most of them were JMC employees because JMC is actually merging into ASC,” AFGE representative said. “I was told, quote, hundreds of employees have been placed into jobs. They've received their MDRs, their management directed reassignment emails. That was last week. So they placed a lot of people, but it's not clear how many still are remaining that are waiting for a job offer that are still surplus.”
In a House Armed Services Committee Readiness Subcommittee on Wednesday, April 15th, Congressman Sorensen shared what he has been hearing from employees at the Arsenal.
“Many of these employees are my neighbors who work at the Rock Island Arsenal. Many are veterans who have worked at Rock Island for 15, 20 and 30 years,” Sorensen said. “A lot of them have been working at Joint Munitions Command. The exact folks that we need who know how to scale up munitions production in desperate times. And it seems appropriate for the time that we are in now.”
The subcommittee hearing included Acting Chief of Staff for the U.S. Army General Christopher LaNeve and other military officials testifying amid the war with Iran.
“We're trying to look as hard as we can at matching skills and attributes and experience to fill these holes. We're dealing with people in their lives and we're trying to do it with the biggest care that we possibly can in order to sustain the workforce for the long term,” General LaNeve said. “There's been some reports out there that people are being told to move without any compensation. It's not true. Anything over 50 miles are being. There's a compensation package associated with it. So we're trying to think through this, and we're trying to get it accomplished in a relatively quick manner.”
Rep. Sorensen responded, “Cutting people at Joint Munitions Command when we're going through munitions like water, it feels so short sighted. But it's not just me saying it. The folks at Rock Island Arsenal, they feel like they've been sucker punched. So why are they given five days to make the decision?”
General LaNeve answered, “There was a longer time that we've been working through the process. So it wasn't just a dropped on at the last moment. It just, you know, you have five days to make this decision. They've known that. They've been going through the process for a while now across all of our commands. Now there is a window for them to make a decision. Do they want to move or not so we can plug the holes and move forward.”
The AFGE Rep says this maneuver is to circumvent the organization heads from determining their own budgets and personnel.
“The surplus employees were created by forcing the organizations to get to their authorized personnel levels. That typically has not been done by the Army. The Army is usually managed based on the budget the organizations have. So if they have varying like mission requirements, they may hire more people to cover additional things that they need to do. And they don't always have authorized positions.
“So it's a deliberate attempt by the Army to cut positions using the authorization ceilings. They've taken away the authority of the agents, the individual organizations to manage their own budgets. They're forcing them to hard personnel ceilings. So it's, it's a situation the army actually has created. They've had a hiring freeze since January of 2025. So many of the 20,000 vacancies that exist within the Army are as a result of freezing hiring for over a year.”
The letter mentions the use of Palantir in matching personnel to positions, a company that uses data analytics. “We will leverage a Vantage-based Palantir personnel matching tool to identify qualified employee-to-vacancy matches at scale,” the letter stated.
The company is mired in controversy for assisting Immigration and Customs Enforcement in locating people for deportation, as well as its use in the conflicts in Ukraine and Palestine.
WVIK reached out to the Army for comment on both the Army Matching Command Process and the elimination of collective bargaining agreements. Army Spokesman, Maj. Travis Shaw responded with a statement, “This action is being taken to implement Executive Order 14251, signed by the President on March 27, 2025. The Department of War [Defense] directed all components to execute these changes on April 9, 2026, and the Army is complying with that directive to ensure our labor relations policies are consistent with our national security mission.”
The Army is still working on a response to the realignment efforts WVIK requested on Thursday, April 16th, and was not sent to WVIK at the time of publication.
“So the executive order was also the timing of it was right after our national union, AFGE and other national unions filed lawsuits against DOGE (Deparment of Government Efficiency - which is not an official department). If you recall a lot of the job cuts that DOGE was doing last year. So the Trump administration put out the EO and put some fact sheet together with it and said ‘We like the unions that only work with us. We don't want ones that obstruct.’ So it was very clear there was retaliatory on the unions.
“They're not planning to terminate contracts for I believe law enforcement. You would think maybe law enforcement employees in the federal government might be related to national security. (The EO claims agencies deemed to have primary national security, intelligence, or investigative functions would be affected) But their unions did not file any lawsuits against [the] Trump administration last year. So they didn't include them in the executive order that terminated their collective bargaining.”
The representative stated that Phase Three of the Army Matching Command Process, which includes finding employees outside the 50-mile radius of the Arsenal to fill vacancies, is starting soon.
“There's no deadline that the Army has set for doing the Phase Three matching either. So the Army wide matching, they have not said when that would end. They have not said what happens if an employee doesn't get an offer either. That's still an unknown,” the AFGE representative said.
Below is the Army Secretary Daniel Driscoll’s office's response to Mariannette Miller-Meeks's questions regarding the Army Matching Command Process that was sent on March 24th.
This is to inform you of the Army's new data-driven Human Capital Strategy to realign the Army's civilian workforce. Over the last year, changes in the Army have led to a significant personnel mismatch, with a surplus of civilian employees in some areas ("faces") and a greater number of critical, unfilled vacancies ("spaces"). This imbalance drives a multi-billion-dollar annual unfunded requirement (UFR) and degrades readiness.
To address this, the Army is initiating a data-driven realignment of its civilian workforce. This is a workforce rebalancing, not a Reduction in Force (RIF), designed to get our people in the right places and create a disciplined path back to external hiring.
The Process: A Phased, Tool-Driven Approach
- Enabling Technology: We will leverage a Vantage-based Palantir personnel matching tool to identify qualified employee-to-vacancy matches at scale.
- Phase 1 (Starts Wed-25 March): Intra-Command Matching. Commands will use Management Directed Reassignments (MDRs) to place their internal surplus employees into their own valid vacancies first.
- Phase 2 (No Later Than Early April): Cross-Command Matching. Once internal matches are exhausted, the process will expand Army-wide to match remaining surplus employees to critical needs across the force.
The End-State: Resuming Strategic Hiring
The goal of this strategy is to first optimize the current force and then resume strategic hiring.
- Optimize the Current Force: We will fill as many vacancies as possible using our existing talent pool of surplus employees.
- Identify True Vacancies: This process will clearly identify the authorized, critical positions that cannot be filled through internal matching.
- Authorize External Hiring: These validated, "unfillable" positions will be the first ones cleared for public hiring announcements. All new hiring will be subject to strict FY27 funding constraints.
This strategic realignment is the most responsible path forward, ensuring the Army's civilian talent is positioned for maximum impact while securing significant cost savings and enhancing readiness. We are also happy to demonstrate the data driven tool if required.
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Thank you for your inquiry regarding the Department of the Army's civilian workforce rebalancing and its impact on Rock Island Arsenal (RIA). This effort is a data-driven realignment of the Army's civilian workforce intended to resolve a multi-billion-dollar unfunded requirement (UFR) and create a disciplined path back to external, strategic hiring. It is important to emphasize that this is a workforce rebalancing, not a Reduction in Force (RIF).
Our goal is to optimize the existing talent pool by aligning surplus personnel with valid, vacant positions to enhance readiness. Below are the responses to your specific questions.
• How many civilian workers based at the Rock Island Arsenal have been deemed surplus employees and were given official notices? The total number across the Arsenal as well as the totals at each Rock Island-based command would be helpful.
The rebalancing is an Army-wide effort. At Rock Island Arsenal specifically, the commands identified a total of 74 employees across several commands have been identified as surplus, meaning the surplus employee did not have a valid authorization (see later question). The breakdown is as follows:
- Army Sustainment Command (ASC): 66
- Network Enterprise Center (NEC): 4
- Joint Munitions Command (JMC): 2
- US Army Garrison Rock Island Arsenal: 2
Currently, there are 24 vacancies at ASC and 120 vacancies at Rock Island Arsenal.
- Phase 1 of the rebalancing will focus on internal movement, matching the surplus employees at ASC and JMC to vacancies within those and other RIA organizations.
- Phase 2 will expand the search, potentially bringing personnel from other Army locations to fill the remaining critical vacancies at Rock Island.
Ultimately, Rock Island Arsenal may be a net winner in this process. Once the internal rebalancing is complete, RIA will be authorized to hire externally against any remaining funded vacancies.
o Please provide information on how ASC and JMC civilian workers are impacted.
While 66 employees at Army Sustainment Command (ASC) and 2 at Joint Munitions Command (JMC) are identified as surplus, this is only the initial step. The process is designed to fill vacancies with existing personnel.
- Phase 1 of the rebalancing will focus on internal movement, matching the surplus employees at ASC and JMC to vacancies within those and other RIA organizations.
- Phase 2 will expand the search, potentially bringing personnel from other Army locations to fill the remaining critical vacancies at Rock Island.
Ultimately, Rock Island Arsenal may be a net winner in this process. Once rebalancing is complete, RIA will be authorized to hire externally against any remaining funded vacancies.
• What information has been shared with employees so far? And what is the timeline for their responses at each phase?
Between March 20-23, identified surplus employees were formally notified that they are subject to the Army Command Matching Program and may receive a Management Directed Reassignment (MDR). Employees are given a specific window to respond to an offer: 2 business days for local reassignments and 5 business days for non-local reassignments.
• What criteria were used in the first phase to determine who was notified they will have a position and who was told they were a surplus?
The criteria for identifying surplus employees was a data-driven process based on official Army manning documents. Each command compared its current personnel roster, the "faces", against the positions listed in its Army Table of Distribution and Allowances (TDA) , which is the Authorization Document. An employee was identified as "surplus" if their position was not a valid, funded requirement on the official Authorization Document. This process created a clear, auditable list of both surplus personnel and validated vacancies.
• Have employees been informed about eligibility for any benefits or assistance should they decline an offered position?
Yes. When an MDR offer is made, employees may be presented with the option of a Voluntary Early Retirement Authority (VERA) or Voluntary Separation Incentive Pay (VSIP).
• Will all surplus employees receive an offer for a new position?
The program's stated goal is to reassign all surplus permanent employees to valid, vacant positions. The Army will make every effort to place employees in a role equivalent to their current position. This is a critical tool to avoid a RIF.
• We are hearing the Army has set an aggressive timeline, and civilian employees are given very little time to make a decision. Why is the timeline so consolidated?
This realignment is designed to quickly enhance readiness, address the multi-billion dollar unfunded requirement, and create a clear path to resume strategic hiring for critical priorities.
• What assistance, severance, or recourse will be available to any employee who cannot meet these timelines or ends up declining these offers?
Recourse: Employees have the right to appeal a Management Directed Reassignment (MDR). An approved appeal returns the employee to the surplus pool for another potential match.
Assistance: Employees who accept a reassignment outside their local commuting area are entitled to have their Permanent Change of Station (PCS) expenses paid by the gaining command.
Severance and Separation: Employees who decline a valid MDR and do not successfully appeal will be separated from federal service. In this event, the primary separation benefits offered are voluntary options. This may include Voluntary Separation Incentive Pay (VSIP), which is a form of severance payment, or the option for Voluntary Early Retirement (VERA), if the employee is eligible.
Our G-1 and HR personal are trained and ready to support our civilian workforce through the process.
- Does this mean you have not been hiring?
We have been hiring critical positions
- Is this a requirement from DOD in order to get the hiring freeze lifted?
No, this is the Army ensuring we have the right personal in the right locations.
- Why are we almost two years in after a massive civilian reduction campaign just now doing this?
The Army wanted to ensure our organizations were correct before cross leveling.
- To that end, does this mean that Army has not stood up their Strategic Hiring Committee or alternatively, that they have paused all hiring while this realignment occurs?
The Strategic Hiring Committee is stood up and being used for hirings of critical positions now and all future positions.
- What is the timeline for this realignment?
The process will occur over the next few weeks, with realignments timelines determined by move location.
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