For decades, Congress has done far too little to check growing presidential power, and the bipartisan trend has only sped up since President Donald Trump took office in January. Yet some signs of life recently emerged from Capitol Hill. Unfortunately, legislators are now looking to claw back some power in pursuit of bad public policy.
In March, Trump issued an executive order to curtail collective bargaining among federal employees. He cited the Civil Service Reform Act of 1978, which gives the president power to limit labor negotiations for employees working in national security. This is sensible enough: Does anyone think it’s a good idea for CIA officers to go on strike during a crisis?
The problem is that Trump’s expansive order included agencies not traditionally associated with national security, such as the Veterans Affairs Department. It may sound counterintuitive, but the VA is a domestic agency. Its purpose is not to directly protect the homeland but to care for people who have left the military.
Some members of Congress understandably believe that ending collective bargaining by federal employees is up to the legislative branch. Yet they wrongly believe that protecting unions at places like the VA is a good idea. The House will soon vote on a bill to rescind Trump’s executive order after five House Republicans signed a discharge petition. While the Senate is unlikely to consider that bill, Sen. Lisa Murkowski (R-Alaska) supports a separate effort to reinstate the VA labor contract invalidated by Trump.
The smarter approach would be for Congress to affirm Trump’s decision to strip collective bargaining rights while dispensing with his flimsy national-security justification. Consider the legacy of pro-union President Franklin D. Roosevelt, who opposed collective bargaining and strikes for federal employees.
As Roosevelt and other pro-union leaders understood in the 1930s, collective bargaining is carried out against an employer. The government’s employer is the public. Allowing unelected labor union bosses to negotiate against the public’s elected representatives to determine how the government gets run is undemocratic. The founders would never have stomached something so inherently at odds with the interests of the people.
This is especially true when labor unions contribute to helping elect the representatives they then get to negotiate with for compensation. Public-sector unions are active in organizing and supporting campaigns so that when their preferred candidate wins, they can reap the spoils of a favorable contract. When their preferred candidate loses, they act as a barrier to the winner’s agenda.
The VA provides a perfect illustration of this dynamic. In 2023, the president of the American Federation of Government Employees (AFGE), Everett Kelley, declared the contract his group signed with the Biden administration was “the very best union contract in the entire federal government.” Now, the AFGE is proud of its status as a frequent plaintiff suing to block Trump’s administrative decisions.
Government unions often shield the worst government employees from accountability. Again, the VA provides good examples. In 2014, a patient at a VA facility in Kansas City escaped a psychiatric ward. The door the patient escaped through was supposed to be locked but was not. After he got out, three VA employees who were tasked with monitoring the secure room recorded that he was still there. One employee recorded that four separate times.
They should have made sure the door was locked, and they shouldn’t have lied about the patient’s whereabouts. Not only were they failing to care for the patient, they put the community at risk. They all deserved to be fired. But the agency only suspended for one day the employee who said four times that the patient was in the room. And then the AFGE filed a grievance because it believed even that lax penalty was too severe. The union ended up prevailing, and the employee was awarded back pay. Such cases are common in a department that has developed what The Post in 2014 called a “culture of cover-ups.”
Veterans deserve better. Patients gained nothing from 1,900 VA employees doing 750,000 hours of “union time” in 2024, which means performing union duties at government expense. Taxpayers also shouldn’t have to pay for 187,000 square feet of VA office space used by the union. The department rightly celebrated the return of those hours and space to veterans when the union contract was terminated in August. Enhancing union power over veterans’ care is an ignominious way for Congress to reclaim its lost influence in Washington.
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