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HUNDREDS OF STAFF AT CALIFORNIA NATIONAL PARKS TO UNIONIZE AMID TRUMP
TURMOIL  
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Dani Anguiano
September 2, 2025
The Guardian
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_ More than 97% at Yosemite and Sequoia & Kings Canyon parks voted to
unionize as president enacts major cuts _

Visitors take in Tunnel View at Yosemite National Park, Eloi Omella

 

Hundreds of staff at two of California
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national parks
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unionize, a move that comes during a troubled summer for the National
Park Service, which has seen the Trump administration
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unprecedented
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staff and budget cuts
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In an election held between July and August, more than 97% of workers
at Yosemite and Sequoia & Kings Canyon national parks voted in support
of organizing a union, according to a statement
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from the National Federation of Federal Employees. The Federal Labor
Relations Authority certified the results last week.

 
“I am honored to welcome the Interpretive Park Rangers, scientists,
biologists, photographers, geographers, and so many other federal
employees in essential roles at both Yosemite and Sequoia & Kings
Canyon to our union,” said Randy Erwin, the NFFE national president.

“By unionizing, hundreds of previously unrepresented employees have
obtained a critical voice in their workplace and now have the power to
make significant changes to benefit themselves and their
colleagues.”

The vote means 600 workers at the parks, including park rangers,
researchers, educators, fee collectors and first responders, among
others, will be represented by the National Federation of Federal
Employees (NFFE).

 
Labor organizers have been trying to form a union at the parks for
years but did not have the necessary support until this year when the
Trump administration’s mass firings
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left the parks service in turmoil, the Los Angeles Times reported
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“It comes as no surprise workers in the National Park Service are
overwhelmingly in favor of unionizing, as federal employees across the
country have been faced with reductions in force, threats to workplace
protections, and slashed agency budgets under this administration,”
Erwin said.

Since Trump took office this year the National Park Service, which
manages 85m acres (34m hectares) of America’s public lands, has lost
a quarter of its permanent staff, seasonal hiring is down and the
administration is seeking to slash more than $1bn from the NPS budget.

 
The US interior secretary, Doug Burgum, has said the cuts were
“clearing out the barn”. Despite the upheaval
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the federal government has ordered parks to stay open to the public.
That has left staffers scrambling to manage the parks amid the peak
summer season, and, as the Guardian reported last month
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archeologists are managing ticket booths while park superintendents
have cleaned bathrooms.

At Yosemite, scientists were also cleaning public bathrooms because
there were no other workers to do it. Amid the turmoil this year, NPS
employees told the Guardian
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earlier this summer they had received unsigned emails from the office
of personnel management urging them to resign and find a job in the
private sector.

“Every day you come to work and you have no idea what is going to
happen next. It’s like we are all being subjected to psychological
warfare,” a staffer said this spring.

Earlier this year at Yosemite, laid-off employees hung a US flag
upside down
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a symbol of distress, at the park’s El Capitan to bring attention
the cuts.

Erwin with the NFFE said the union would take “every step
possible” to increase staffing and resources, and defend employees.

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* Yosemite and Sequoia & Kings Park Employees Organize; National
Federation of Federal Employees;
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