The order applies to nearly two dozen locals of the IFPTE union within DoD/DoW, as well as to certain locals of seven other unions there, among other agency locals. Image: Al Orfali/Shutterstock.com
By: FEDweek StaffA federal judge has issued a preliminary injunction blocking the application of President Trump’s order on union representation at portions of the EPA, Coast Guard, and the Energy and Defense (also called War with legislation pending to formalize the name change) departments.
The order by District Judge Paul L. Friedman of the U.S. District Court in the District of Columbia is the latest in a series of initial rulings in favor of unions in their challenges to those orders, which cited national security and related grounds in telling some two dozen agencies to disavow existing contracts and refuse to negotiate with selected unions.
Many of those injunctions later have been lifted on appeal—leaving the executive orders in place while the trial courts turn to the merits of the complaints—although that pattern was broken recently in a case involving the Department of Defense Education Activity, where an appeals court left the injunction in effect.
Judge Friedman’s order applies to nearly two dozen locals of the IFPTE union within DoD, as well as to certain locals of seven other unions there; to locals of two unions at the Coast Guard and to the IFPTE unit at EPA and to the OPEIU unit at Energy.
While the order did not go into detail, according to the IFPTE the judge had said at a hearing that the unions “had demonstrated irreparable harm necessary for a preliminary injunction. He further found that the administration’s ‘retaliation, animus, favoring some unions and not others’ are ‘clearly ultra vires,’ or outside the scope of the President’s legal authority.”
“Judge Friedman’s decision made clear that the executive order was retaliatory, stating, ‘The executive order is in furtherance of unrelated policy goals. The president acted outside the narrow bounds of the national security exclusion to pursue improper goals, that is, to retaliate against unions,’” the IFPTE said.
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