During the first year of the second Trump administration, roughly 350,000 federal employees left their positions. Through a combination of layoffs, deferred resignations, early retirements, and illegal dismissals, the federal workforce shrank by more than 10%. Public lands agencies have been especially hard hit. Since January 2025, the National Park Service has lost nearly a quarter of its employees, while the U.S. Forest Service, Bureau of Land Management, and U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service have each seen their staff decline by almost 20%. The agencies have been affected at all levels, from senior executive management to seasonal hires. It’s not hyperbole to say that the country’s public lands face one of the greatest crises in their history.
It’s easy to feel overwhelmed by this type of data, especially when your position has already been affected or may be on a list for the next round of layoffs. Would a collective rather than an individual response be more effective in addressing the challenges public lands workers now face? Could organized labor play a role in addressing the administration’s current attacks and in planning for a new, likely very different future? What does it look like to be part of the public lands labor force at this moment, and what role might unions play in shaping its future?
Interested in discussing these questions? Join us at the April meeting of the Public Lands Reading and Discussion group on April 23, 2026, from 2 pm to 3 pm ET.
To attend this session and receive a list of suggested readings, please email PublicLands_ReadingGroup@proton.me.
We will be joined by Rudy D’Alessandro, longtime president of the National Treasury Employees Union (NTEU) Chapter 296, which represents non-supervisory staff at the National Park Service (NPS) headquarters. For over 20 years, Rudy worked for the NPS Office of International Affairs, which was decimated by DOGE-instigated cuts last year. In his volunteer role as president of Chapter 296, Rudy is responsible for appointing stewards, representing colleagues in grievances and arbitrations with NPS senior management and federal mediators, and interfacing with national NTEU representatives.
Unions currently represent only a small fraction of public lands workers, though membership has increased in recent years. During our discussion, we will learn more from Rudy about organizing and collective bargaining in the context of public lands, with a focus not only on the Trump administration and its restructuring of the Departments of the Interior and Agriculture, but also on workers’ rights more broadly.