President Donald Trump‘s administration secured a legal win on Friday when a federal appeals court lifted a lower court injunction that had blocked the president’s plan to end unionizing rights for hundreds of thousands of federal workers in a case brought by the National Treasury Employees Union (NTEU).
Newsweek contacted the Department of Justice and the NTEU for comment on Saturday via online inquiry form and email respectively outside of regular office hours.
Why It Matters
With Republicans controlling both chambers of Congress the courts have emerged as arguably the most significant impediment to Trump administration policy.
Since Donald Trump’s second inauguration in January courts have blocked a number of his policies including a ban on transgender individuals serving in the military, the freezing of billions in foreign aid and on Friday the Supreme Court ruled against deporting Venezuelan nationals using the 1798 Alien Enemies Act.
What To Know
Friday saw a U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit panel put on hold an injunction issued by a lower court blocking the implementation of an executive order issued by Trump in March on union rights in federal government.
Trump’s executive order removed more than a dozen federal agencies, including the departments of Defense, State, Treasury, Justice, Veterans Affairs and Health and Human Services, from union bargaining obligations regarding their employees.
A preliminary injunction blocking the executive order’s implementation was then issued by U.S. District Judge Paul Friedman on April 25 in response to an NTEU legal challenge.
The NTEU argued Trump’s order was in violation both of federal workers’ labor rights and the U.S. Constitution.
Friday’s decision was made in a 2-1 ruling with the George H.W. Bush appointee Judge Karen Henderson, and first term Trump appointee Judge Justin Walker, ruling against the injunction while President Joe Biden appointee Judge Michelle Childs argued it should remain.
According to court documents, around a million federal employees would be impacted by the executive order on union representation, which the NTEU said included around 100,000 of its members.
What People Are Saying
In their majority decision Judges Henderson and Walker said: “Preserving the President’s autonomy under a statute that expressly recognizes his national-security expertise is within the public interest.”
Judge Childs argued the administration had only provided “vague assertions” about the initial injunction’s national security implications.
She added: “How can the Government argue that the district court injunction will cause irreparable injury when the Government itself voluntarily imposed that same constraint?”
What Happens Next
The NTEU has not said whether it plans to appeal Friday’s ruling. If the ruling stands, and Trump’s executive order goes into effect, hundreds of thousands of federal workers stand to lose union collective bargaining rights.
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