A demonstrator in a picket line of union allies and supporters at 26 Federal Plaza for Stave Our Services day of action protesting DOGE and E. Musk-led mass layoffs and cuts to services and funding. Image: Gina M Randazzo/ZUMA Press Wire/Shutterstock
By: FEDweek StaffUPDATED: A federal judge has called President Trump’s executive order to repudiate existing contracts and bar future bargaining across most of the government “indifferent” to the law but rather issued “in furtherance of unrelated policy goals” including a “retaliatory motive” against federal unions.
District Judge Paul Friedman of the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia on Monday (April 28) made those statements in an opinion expanding on an injunction he previously issued to block, at least temporarily, that order as it applies to agencies where the NTEU union has bargaining units.
The case could be just the first of many legal rulings to come over that order and the accompanying OPM guidance, which among other things told agencies to disavow negotiated contracts and to withdraw from any ongoing bargaining or grievance procedures.
The opinion says that while the law allows a President to bar union representation at agencies, or parts of them, whose “primary function” is national security, the administration “provides a meager defense” for why the entirety or parts of eight Cabinet departments and more than a half-dozen other agencies should fall under that designation.
“While the government never explicitly states how it interprets ‘primary function,’ its arguments related to each of the agencies and subdivisions reflect either an overly broad interpretation of the term or a disregard of the term entirely,” the opinion says.
He agreed with the NTEU that the order itself, a White House statement accompanying it and the OPM guidance “appear to be more about accomplishing the Administration’s goal of substantially changing the nature of the federal workforce.” They “reflect President Trump’s frustration with the unions’ representational activity and exercise of their First Amendment rights – such as through ‘filing grievances to block Trump policies’ – and the impact those activities have had on his policy directives and ‘agenda.’”
The opinion also expands on the scope of his injunction, saying it applies to these agencies which both fall under the order and have NTEU bargaining units:
- Department of Treasury, Internal Revenue Service, IRS Office of Chief Counsel, Bureau of Fiscal Service, Departmental Offices, Alcohol and Tobacco Trade and Tax Bureau, Office of Comptroller of the Currency;
- Department of Energy;
- Department of Justice, Civil Rights Division and Environment and Natural Resources Division;
- Environmental Protection Agency;
- Federal Communications Commission;
- Department of Health and Human Services, the Office of the Secretary, the Food and Drug Administration, the Administration for Strategic Preparedness and Response, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, and the Office of Refugee Resettlement within the Administration of Children and Families; and
- Department of the Interior, Bureau of Land Management.
NTEU said the ruling “means the collective bargaining rights of federal employees will remain intact and the administration’s illegal agenda to sideline the voices of federal employees and dismantle unions is blocked.”
Next Steps
Friedman meanwhile ordered the union and government to report by Friday (May 2) on “how this case should proceed.”
The next step could be an appeal by the Trump administration, which has challenged—mostly ultimately successfully—injunctions that district court judges have issued against other personnel policies such as the mass layoff of probationary employees and the firing of senior leaders of independent agencies including the MSPB and Office of Special Counsel.
The AFGE union—which has large bargaining units in DoD, VA and SSA, among others covered by the order—meanwhile is pursuing a similar suit in a different federal court. It praised the ruling in the NTEU case and said that “We are confident that, together, these efforts will secure the full relief federal employees deserve — and send a clear message that no administration is above the law.”
In contrast, the administration has filed suits in two other courts—one each focusing on those two unions—seeking a court declaration that the order falls within a President’s authority. Since the administration filed its cases in courts with conservative records, the result could be conflicting decisions and numerous procedural challenges that ultimately could end up before the U.S. Supreme Court.
One immediate impact of the order had been that under the OPM guidance, agencies stopped payroll withholding of union dues from pay of employees in the affected bargaining units; while the unions encouraged employees to pay dues directly, the change has already proven to be a financial hardship to them. The OPM guidance further told agencies to stop providing unions free use of agency office space and other resources.
The timing of legal rulings over the order will be important as many agencies have announced, or are set to announce, potentially widescale RIFs and reorganizations. In many cases, agencies have agreed in those contracts to take additional steps favorable to employees in case of a reduction in force or reorganization—provisions that the OPM guidance on the order told them to ignore.
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