Originally published Agencies seek ‘legal certainty’ from court to bar many feds from collective bargaining on by https://federalnewsnetwork.com/workforce/2025/03/agencies-seek-legal-certainty-from-court-to-bar-many-feds-from-collective-bargaining/ at Federal News Network
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The Trump administration is looking to end collective bargaining rights for nearly half the federal workforce — a move federal employee unions say is retaliation for their lawsuits challenging plans to downsize agencies.
President Donald Trump signed an executive order Thursday seeking to end collective bargaining for more than a dozen agencies, on the grounds that their work impacts national security.
The American Federation of Government Employees (AFGE) estimates the executive order affects more than a million federal employees — nearly half the federal workforce.
AFGE National President Everett Kelley called the executive order “plainly retaliatory” at a press conference Friday.
“The executive order says plainly that they are taking this action because AFGE is standing up for our members. But I want to assure everybody that AFGE will always stand up for its members,” Kelley said.
Federal employee unions are leading many lawsuits challenging the Trump administration’s cuts to the federal workforce.
Federal judges in two AFGE-led lawsuits have ordered agencies to reinstate 25,000 fired probationary employees, after they determined OPM unlawfully directed agency heads to conduct the firings.
Kelley said barring this many federal employees from unions “will harm government effectiveness, sabotage public service and betray the trust of millions of Americans who rely on federal workers every single day.”
Guidance from the Office of Personnel Management says agencies and components covered under the executive order “are no longer required to collectively bargain with federal unions.”
OPM previously told agencies to ignore collective bargaining agreements when it came to bringing federal employees back to the office more often, and conducting layoffs through a governmentwide Reduction in Force (RIF).
The Trump administration is taking further steps to cement its actions. Several agencies filed a lawsuit against AFGE in the U.S. District Court for the Western District of Texas, seeking a declaratory judgment confirming they have the power to rescind or repudiate certain collective bargaining agreements.
“Plaintiffs wish to rescind or repudiate those CBAs, including so they can protect national security by developing personnel policies that otherwise would be precluded or hindered by the CBAs. But to ensure legal certainty and avoid unnecessary labor strife, they first seek declaratory relief to confirm that they are legally entitled to proceed with doing so,” the complaint states.
The lawsuit states collective bargaining agreements with federal employees have been a “serious impediment to effective agency operations and national security.”
“When inflexible CBAs obstruct presidential and agency head capacity to ensure accountability and improve performance, all citizens pay the price. And the price is particularly intolerable when national security is on the line,” agencies wrote in their complaint.
President Donald Trump told reporters in December it was “ridiculous” the Social Security Administration signed a five-year labor contract with AFGE before he took office, locking in its telework policy for employees through 2029.
The lawsuit states these “midnight” collective bargaining agreements restrict return-to-office policies, require agencies to settle labor disputes with third-party arbitrators, and limit the power of agencies to “identify and address underperformance.”
“The Biden Administration renegotiated many CBAs to last through most or all of President Trump’s second term. This means the Trump Administration cannot alter agency policies on performance accountability that are embedded in CBAs, even if the President believes they are a serious impediment to effective agency operations and thus national security, the lawsuit states.
The executive order will cancel collective bargaining agreements at the departments of Defense, Veterans Affairs, State, Treasury, Justice and Energy, as well as the National Science Foundation, Environmental Protection Agency, U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID), Nuclear Regulatory Commission, International Trade Commission, Federal Communications Commission, and General Services Administration.
The order also impacts components of the departments of Interior, Agriculture, Commerce, Homeland Security, and Health and Human Services.
The lawsuit notes that several intelligence and national security agencies, including the FBI, CIA, National Security Agency, and Secret Service, are prohibited from collective bargaining.
The Trump administration, however, is taking a much broader view of national security, arguing that the president and agency heads “cannot afford to be obstructed by CBAs that micromanage oversight of the federal workforce and impede performance accountability.”
“The President commands our nation’s defense and military capabilities. He necessarily does so through executive agencies and subdivisions that hold a primary function in supporting that important work, including by ensuring that our nation’s economic, food supply, labor, transportation, trade, information and technology, and financial systems are not undermined by threats,” the complaint states.
Matt Biggs, president of the International Federation of Professional and Technical Engineers, which represents 34,000 federal employees, said the executive order has “just taken a wrecking ball to our national security, particularly at our naval shipyards.”
“Our members in the Navy are able to get the ships and the submarines out to sea on time, in a safe manner and efficiently, under budget. It’s through these partnerships that we’re able to accomplish that work,” Biggs said.
Randy Erwin, president of the National Federation of Federal Employees, said the Trump administration’s latest actions are “clearly retaliation to federal unions for standing up to Trump’s attacks on the civil service.”
“Federal workers’ rights are protected by law. The president does not have the right to unilaterally eliminate them. Those rights don’t disappear just because the president finds them inconvenient, and that is exactly what is happening here,” Erwin said.
The American Foreign Service Association, which represents 18,000 members of the Foreign Service across six agencies, said in a statement that when “employee voices are silenced and their rights are diminished, our nation becomes less secure.”
“By removing the safeguards that ensure fairness, transparency, and accountability in the workplace, this executive order grants agency management, at the direction of any administration, unilateral authority to politicize Foreign Service assignments, evaluations, promotions, and more, without union input or oversight,” AFSA wrote.
House Oversight and Government Reform Committee Chairman Jamie Raskin (D-Md.) said the Trump administration’s actions are “bringing chaos and retaliation against the American labor movement.”
“It’s clear as day that they are retaliating against the labor movement for standing up for the rights of workers,” Raskin said.
Rep. Steny Hoyer (D-Md.) said Trump’s executive order is “destructive, very disturbing, and probably illegal.”
“I’m hopeful that our courts will deem this latest executive order illegal, as they have from so many of the Trump administration’s actions these past few months,” Hoyer said.
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Originally published Agencies seek ‘legal certainty’ from court to bar many feds from collective bargaining on by https://federalnewsnetwork.com/workforce/2025/03/agencies-seek-legal-certainty-from-court-to-bar-many-feds-from-collective-bargaining/ at Federal News Network
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