Court Blocks Trump’s Federal Union-Busting Plan, Calling It ‘Unlawful’

A federal judge issued an injunction late Friday temporarily blocking the Trump administration from stripping collective bargaining rights from hundreds of thousands of federal workers.

Judge Paul L. Friedman, of the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia, wrote in his brief order that the White House’s policy meant to weaken unions is “unlawful.” Friedman said the court would offer its reasoning for that determination in a forthcoming opinion.

In late March, President Donald Trump signed an executive order carving a long list of agencies out of federal labor law protections in the name of “national security.” But many of the affected employees, including nurses, biologists and park rangers, don’t do any national security work.

Meanwhile, the administration suggested in its announcement that the president was motivated by retribution. “Certain Federal unions have declared war on President Trump’s agenda,” a White House “fact sheet” on the executive order stated.

Unions filed a pair of lawsuits aimed at blocking the policy from taking effect, arguing it was illegal and retaliatory. Friedman’s order applies to the case brought by the National Treasury Employees Union, which represents workers at 37 federal agencies.

The injunction should prevent agencies from implementing the policy while the underlying lawsuit moves forward, though the Trump administration has repeatedly flouted court orders and shown disdain for the judiciary branch.

Liz Shuler, president of the AFL-CIO labor federation, applauded the injunction in a statement.

“This was the most significant attack on workers’ rights in history, and if Trump was allowed to do it to federal workers, he would be able to do it to every worker in America, in every workplace and every industry,” Shuler said.

Some workers are already excluded from collective bargaining because their jobs focus on counterintelligence or national security. But Trump’s order would apply to agencies like the Department of Veterans Affairs, the Food Safety and Inspection Service and the Environmental Protection Agency, where most employees don’t come anywhere near those functions.

If allowed to stand, Trump’s executive order would severely weaken federal unions and make it much easier for the administration to fire employees it considers insufficiently loyal to the president. Existing union contracts would be thrown out, and workers would lose collective bargaining rights at agencies where they’ve enjoyed them for decades.

It would also lead to fewer dues-paying members at federal unions, which the White House views as enemies. Groups like the NTEU and the American Federation of Government Employees have brought a slew of lawsuits aimed at slowing the administration’s efforts to dismantle federal agencies and push workers off the federal payrolls.

When the NTEU filed its complaint to block Trump’s executive order, the union called the administration’s reasoning behind it “absurd.”

“We all know this has nothing to do with national security and that the true goal here is to make it easier to fire federal employees across government,” said the union’s president, Doreen Greenwald.