The union representing employees at the federal Cold Regions Research & Engineering Laboratory in Hanover is seeking to prevent the federal Office of Personnel Management from ‘harassing’ employees as part of the Department of Government Efficiency’s ongoing effort to cut the federal workforce. (U.S. Army Corps of Engineers photo)
The Trump administration’s effort to shrink the federal workforce is getting pushback from employees of the Hanover-based laboratory that conducts cold weather research for the U.S. military and other branches of government.
The local chapter of the International Federation of Professional and Technical Engineers, a union at the Cold Regions Research and Engineering Laboratory, or CRREL, filed a charge directly against the federal Office of Personnel Management in January.
CRREL is one of thousands of federal agencies and programs going through often massive budget cuts at the hands of the Department of Government Efficiency, or DOGE, led by Elon Musk, the world’s richest person. DOGE has initiated tens of thousands of firings and resignations, and entire agencies have been dismantled.
Now, Department of Defense research conducted at CRREL is in its sights.
Employees at the facility, including the union chapter president Andrew Bernier, say the actions by the Office of Personnel Management and the Trump administration’s campaign against diversity, equity and inclusion have created a culture of instability and fear. He said he was speaking on his own behalf, not as a representative of CRREL.
CRREL does research for the Department of Defense and Army Corps of Engineers. It employs hundreds of specialists who study a wide range of cold weather impacts on military operations, infrastructure and readiness. Their study includes climate change, microbiology, materials science, weather patterns and technological capabilities in cold environments.
“We at CRREL have a huge mission,” Bernier said. “That's everything that can interact with the cold.”
Bernier contends the Trump administration has violated the union’s collective bargaining agreement in its efforts to downsize the federal workforce, and DOGE has used the Office of Personnel Management to communicate directly with federal workers, rather than going through traditional chain-of-command structures.
The cutting started as soon as Trump took office in January, Bernier said, and that month’s “fork in the road” email called for a massive reduction in the federal workforce.
The email laid out four “pillars”: a demand for in-office work, an increase in “performance culture,” “a more streamlined and flexible workforce,” and “enhanced standards of conduct,” including the demand for employees to be “loyal.”
The email shared the same title and tone as an email Musk sent after he purchased Twitter in 2022, and fired nearly 80 percent of the workforce.
Two CRREL researchers agreed to be interviewed if they were granted anonymity.
One described job promotions at CRREL as “100 percent merit-based,” because, to get promoted, employees need to put together packages for peer review in a manner similar to a professor seeking tenure.
“I want to see a CEO put together a 20- to 30-page package, give it to their peers and have them review it and say, ‘Yes, you actually do deserve all this money.’ That would never happen in private industry,” she said.
Now, said the other, “there’s definitely a lower morale for what is essentially a hostile work environment. Being in public service for most people means you forgo a high salary in the private sector for the benefit of serving the public and more job security because you know your job is needed.”
That sense of security has vanished since the Trump administration unleashed DOGE, Bernier said.
Bernier said he has provided frequent updates to union members, and his efforts drew notice. In an interview with Wired magazine, Bernier said that, shortly after filing his charge, he started receiving unnerving emails from an anonymous sender outside the Department of Defense system. They mentioned a variety of personal details of Bernier’s life, leading him to fear he was under some type of surveillance.
So far, no CRREL contracts have been canceled, Bernier said, but agencies that work with CRREL, including the National Science Foundation, have had to scrub climate change language or climate references that have become targets of the Trump administration.
One of the researchers said the language issues have prompted numerous changes in the names of various offices, such as a “climate office” becoming an “installation of resilience,” or the “climate resilience office” becoming “natural hazards.”
On March 17, Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth sent a two-page memo to senior Pentagon leaders, calling for “elimination of the ‘Climate’ Distraction” because it is “unrelated to the Department’s mission,” and no DoD component will “plan, program or budget for inclusion of climate change initiatives in the Future Years Defense Program.”
But the memo also states that it should not be “misconstrued to prevent the Department from assessing weather-related impacts on operations, mitigating weather-related risks, conducting environmental assessments, as appropriate, and improving the resilience of military installations.”
DOGE has started demanding weekly updates from federal workers on what they are doing. Now, every week, every CRREL employee must write down five bullet points of what they accomplished the previous week. Those lists are then sent to OPM.
“That creates a culture of fear,” one of the researchers said. “Every day we come to work, we have this fear that we could be arbitrarily fired for being a probationary employee, associated with climate change, based on DEI. We’re seeing it happen at other agencies.”
The Office of Personnel Management initially agreed to answer questions via email for this story, but ceased communications once the questions were sent.
CRREL’s public affairs specialist replied, when asked for comment: “CRREL continues to receive new and updated guidance from the Department of Defense, Department of the Army and U.S. Army Corps of Engineers and is working to ensure that all actions are carried out with utmost professionalism, efficiency, and in alignment with national security objectives, and in ways consistent with applicable law and collective bargaining unit agreements.
“While numerous implementation orders have yet to be completely detailed and finalized by our chain of command, our key mission and activities — and especially the dedication and professionalism of our employees — have not changed.
“We continue to work hard at our laboratories and offices here in Hanover, New Hampshire, and Fairbanks, Alaska, and at fieldwork sites across the globe to solve some of the toughest challenges facing our nation and military in cold and complex regions.”
These articles are being shared by partners in the Granite State News Collaborative. For more information, visit collaborativenh.org.