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The union representing 30,000 Bureau of Prisons employees is asking a federal judge to hold the agency in contempt, alleging that prison leadership has refused to follow the court’s order to immediately restore its collective bargaining agreement.
The contempt request, filed Oct. 6, comes just one week after U.S. District Judge Vernon Oliver in Connecticut granted a motion for a preliminary injunction against the Bureau of Prisons that was sought by the National Council of Prison Locals.
Bureau of Prisons Director William Marshall terminated the collective bargaining agreement on Sept. 25, 2025. He alleged the union posed an “obstacle to progress” and said it was not the “kind of union” he could support.
The judge ruled that the union was likely to succeed on the merits of its argument that the BOP had violated the Administrative Procedure Act by terminating the collective bargaining agreement and ordered the bureau to reinstate it immediately.
In its motion for contempt, the union alleged that bureau leadership is stonewalling and refusing to allow the union to resume its usual operations, including by allowing people to have “official” union time.
In one such example, the motion and an accompanying sworn statement said that a BOP employee who was facing termination asked to be represented by a shop steward at the meeting.
“There ain’t no union,” a BOP official allegedly told the employee, according to the motion. The employee was terminated on Oct. 5.
In another allegation, the union said that Marshall told people on Sept. 29, hours before the court ruling hit the docket, that he had no plans to enforce the terms of the collective bargaining agreement unless he received direct orders from the White House.
“They have not restored union office space or official time, allowed for union representation in disciplinary proceedings, or taken any of the other myriad specific steps that Defendants themselves told the court would be required if the court entered the requested injunction,” attorneys for the union wrote.
“Defendants’ noncompliance is total.”
In a press release issued by American Federation of Government Employees Local 1237, which represents employees at FCI Mendota, the union alleged that management in that facility had also locked union officials out of their offices.
The Bureau of Prisons declined to comment, citing the pending litigation.
Since the court’s original Sept. 29 order granting the union’s request for a preliminary injunction, the Justice Department has not formally sought a stay to pause the ruling.
On Oct. 2, however, the Justice Department filed a formal “notice of compliance” with the court. In that filing, it said BOP was “aware” of the court’s order and “complying with its terms.”
But at the same time, the department also said that it did not understand the court’s ruling to mean that the BOP could not proceed with trying to re-terminate the collective bargaining agreement again before it expires in May 2028.
It also added that the Justice Department did not expect the U.S. District Court would be supervising “every alleged failure” by BOP to comply with the collective bargaining agreement.
The Trump administration has been trying to eliminate unions at multiple federal agencies.
In March 2025, President Trump issued an executive order that sought to exclude federal offices involved in national security or intelligence work from having collective bargaining agreements with staff. That order also applied to the Justice Department, which includes the Bureau of Prisons.
But after the order was made public, the BOP allowed its union to continue operating for approximately six months before terminating the collective bargaining agreement.
In doing so, Marshall at the time did not cite national security as a basis for his decision.
