PUGET SOUND, Wash. — One of President Donald Trump’s executive orders is expected to have a large impact on the Puget Sound Naval Shipyard (PSNS) in Bremerton.

The president’s order to end all diversity, equity, and inclusion programs directly affects the Employee Resource Groups (ERG) at the shipyard.

These groups may be focused on Black, Indigenous, and People of Color (BIPOC), veterans who suffer Post Traumatic Stress, or centered around women, one of the longest-running ERGs at PSNS.

“It’s not just an employee resource group. It’s a support group. Managers are there. A lot of managers are females and need the same sort of support on how they operate within those groups. We don’t ask anybody to verify this. There’s no card check at the door,” Mark Leighton, the president of the Bremerton Metal Trades Council (BMTC) told KOMO News.

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BMTC represents the majority of blue-collar workers at PSNS. The idea of the ERG includes a sharing of cultures, networking, and finding career advancement opportunities, all while also highlighting individual accomplishments.

“Males looking to treat their female coworkers better. How do I do this better? How do I be a better coworker? Maybe I should pick up some Spanish from the Hero Group, the Hispanic American Employees Resource Organization,” Leighton explained.

As a union president, Leighton said he attended most meetings.

“So I might go and check and make sure that all my minorities are not being disheartened or treated poorly,” he told KOMO News.

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In a follow-up memo to the heads and acting heads of all departments and agencies, Charles Ezell, the Acting Director of the U.S. Office of Personnel Management, stated that all agencies should terminate what he called “illegal DEI initiatives” to “promote a federal workplace committed to equal dignity and respect, and to avoid expending precious taxpayer resources on wasteful and discriminatory programs.”

Ezell’s memo also directed agencies to “promptly end illegal preferences and discrimination and restore merit-based equal employment opportunity.”

To do this, it stated that agencies should reorganize and eliminate Special Emphasis Programs that promote DEIA.

“It’s a return to don’t ask, don’t tell sort of an issue where most of them had been marginalized for decades. And now it feels like they’ve been marginalized again,” Leighton said. Sure, he said employees can go to their manager, even the union with a problem, but Leighton, a white male, told KOMO News he does not look like anyone in the ERGs.

“So it’s hard to recognize yourself in someone you’re trying to identify with without a discussion,” Leighton said. Leighton said this will bring morale down, but there’s no way of knowing if anyone will leave their positions because of it.

“There’s no difference in hiring. The DEI effectively, any of the DEI mandates before simply recruiting to go out to different locations and give the opportunity to groups that are not normally approached. But there’s no quotas on anything,” Leighton said.

The ERGs at PSNS usually took place during their lunch break, but now that no federal email, message boards, or spaces can be used as part of diversity, equity, and inclusion, the groups have lost their communication tools and ability to meet.

Federal orders also put the one-year probation back in place for all employees, so for instance, if the welder is not proficient in welding at the one-year mark, that person washes out.

“If you cannot rig, you can’t be a rigger. All those trades are the same. Same thing with contract professionals who sit behind a desk and write out contracts, hammer those out, and contact businesses in the field to secure work to support the shipyard. If those guys can’t do the job, they’ll get out,” said Leighton.