A federal judge on Friday blocked the Trump administration from terminating the collective bargaining rights for a sizeable share of the federal workforce.
The preliminary injunction issued by US District Court Judge Paul Friedman in the District of Columbia also found that a key section of President Donald Trump’s executive order allowing more than a dozen federal agencies to end collective bargaining with unions to be unlawful.
As part of his effort to overhaul the federal workforce, Trump signed the order in late March aimed at stripping collective bargaining rights from government employees whose work include national security aspects.
The expansive order applies to workers at the departments of State, Defense, Justice and Health and Human Services, among others. It also impacts the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, the Federal Communications Commission, and US Immigration and Customs Enforcement.
A fact sheet released by the White House said, “The President needs a responsive and accountable civil service to protect our national security.” And it specified that the order is aimed at stopping federal unions who have “declared war on President Trump’s agenda.”
The National Treasury Employees Union quickly filed a lawsuit seeking to block the executive order, arguing that nixing collective bargaining rights conflicts with the law that Congress passed to facilitate and strengthen collective bargaining among the federal workforce. The union, which says Trump’s directive would strip union rights from about two-thirds of its members, then filed a request for a preliminary injunction.
“No president had ever tried to use the national security exemption in such a sweeping way,” Paras Shah, NTEU’s deputy general counsel, said during a hearing on Wednesday, pointing to the fact sheet and OPM’s guidance. “Those documents make clear that the executive orders objectives are twofold: First, to make federal employees easier to fire, and second, to exact political retribution against unions that stood up to the president’s agenda.”
Friedman, who read from the fact sheet, also questioned Trump’s motive in issuing the order.
“He’s willing to be kind to those that work with him. Those that have sued him, those that have filed grievances, those that have complained against him, he’s not going to bargain with,” the judge said. “How else can you read what he’s done?”
Emily Hall, a Justice Department attorney, disagreed with the Friedman’s assessment, noting that the order doesn’t cover all the agencies where the NTEU represents workers. Also, collective bargaining agreements can delay the implementation of policy changes that the president determines necessary for national security, she said.
“Part of that very discretionary determination involves how agencies are able or unable, given the way that collective bargaining operates, to go ahead and implement changes as necessary for the national security,” she said.
Friedman, however, also questioned the administration’s contention that certain agencies have national security as their primary function, citing the National Institutes of Health, Federal Emergency Management Agency and Department of Agriculture.
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