Union sues Trump administration over executive order revoking federal departments collective bargaining rights – JURIST
A union representing employees of 37 federal agencies and offices filed a lawsuit Monday against the Trump Administration, seeking to stop an executive order released on March 27 that would revoke two-thirds of the federal workforce’s collective bargaining rights.
The executive order added more than a dozen federal departments and agencies to the list of national security exclusions “to enhance the national security of the US.” The order exempts the listed departments from collective bargaining obligations because they have “a primary function of intelligence, counterintelligence, investigative or security work.”
The lawsuit filed by the National Treasury Employee Union (NTEU) names as defendants President Donald Trump, Office of Personnel Management Acting Director Charles Ezell, US Attorney General Pamela Bondi, and Secretary of the Department of Health and Human Services Robert F. Kennedy Jr., as well as 10 additional heads of federal offices. It alleges the executive order targeting the named departments is “baseless and unlawful.”
“The Administration’s own issuances show that the President’s exclusions are not based on national security concerns, but instead a policy objective of making federal employees easier to fire and political animus against federal sector unions,” the lawsuit reads.
Through unions, federal workers can bargain to improve working conditions by advocating for tools and resources needed to fulfill their jobs. Bargained-for contracts often include safeguards for terminating union-represented employees.
Nearly two-thirds of the NTEU’s 158,000 employees in bargaining units are affected by the executive order. The NTEU alleges that none of the named departments has a primary function that would warrant excluding them from collective bargaining rights.
NTEU National President Doreen Greenwald stated that the order “is an attempt to silence the voices of our nation’s public servants.”
The American Federation of Government Employees (AFGE), the largest federal employee union that represents 820,000 workers across the federal government, also issued a rebuke of the executive order, calling it an attack on the collective bargaining rights of over a million federal employees.
“AFGE is preparing immediate legal action and will fight relentlessly to protect our rights, our members, and all working Americans from these unprecedented attacks,” said AFGE National President Everett Kelly in a statement.
