A federal judge on June 24 blocked President Donald Trump’s administration from eliminating collective bargaining for hundreds of thousands of federal workers at 21 agencies, finding that unions suing the administration over the move were likely to succeed in their lawsuit.
Those employees are collectively represented by the unions, who argued Trump’s order was unconstitutional and sought to punish them for constitutionally-protected speech and opposition to executive actions, including the administration’s efforts to overhaul the government and mass firings and layoffs of agency employees.
The unions said they had been harmed by Trump’s order while workers had lost contractual rights and protections governing their working conditions, including those regarding working hours, sick leave, disciplinary actions, and reduction-in-force actions.
The unions also demonstrated a likelihood of proving that Trump’s order had a “chilling effect” on their right to free speech under the Constitution’s First Amendment, Donato said.
“It condemned unions who criticized the President and expressed support only for unions who toed the line,” the judge wrote. “It mandated the dissolution of long-standing collective bargaining rights and other workplace protections for federal unions deemed oppositional to the President. All of this is solid evidence of a tie between the exercise of First Amendment rights and a government sanction.”
Donato issued an injunction blocking 21 agencies from implementing Trump’s order pending the outcome of the unions’ legal challenge.
Trump’s March 27 executive action is aimed at ending collective bargaining with federal labor unions for numerous employees of government agencies with national security missions.
The order applies to workers across more than a dozen agencies within the Departments of State, Defense, Veterans Affairs, Energy, Health and Human Services, Treasury, Justice, Commerce, and the part of Homeland Security responsible for border security.
Ending collective bargaining with federal unions in these agencies is necessary because of their role in national security, the order states.
The order said it has been determined that the agencies “have as a primary function intelligence, counterintelligence, investigative, or national security work.”
An accompanying fact sheet published by the White House said Trump signed the order using his authority granted under the Civil Service Reform Act of 1978, and that the act “enables hostile Federal unions to obstruct agency management.”
AFGE National President Everett Kelley expressed gratitude that Donato did not accept Trump’s national security argument.
“Federal employees have had the right to join a union and bargain collectively for decades, including during President Trump’s first term, and at no time have employees’ union rights caused concern for our nation’s national security,” Kelley said in a June 25 press release.
“Revoking these rights was clearly a retaliatory attempt to bust federal unions and wreak havoc on our nation’s workforce and the services they provide to the American people,” he continued.
