A group of unions on Monday asked a federal judge in San Francisco to bar the Trump administration from eliminating collective bargaining rights for hundreds of thousands of federal employees.
The American Federation of Government Employees and five other unions moved for a temporary restraining order, that would block President Donald Trump’s executive order, excluding more than a dozen federal agencies, including the Department of Veterans Affairs, from collective bargaining obligations pending further litigation.
Trump excluded from collective bargaining obligations agencies that he said “have as a primary function intelligence, counterintelligence, investigative, or national security work.” The executive order significantly expands an existing exception from collective bargaining for workers with duties affecting national security, such as certain employees of the CIA and FBI.
The order applies to the departments of Justice, State, Defense, Treasury, Veterans Affairs, and Health and Human Services, among other agencies. It affects about 75% of the 1.3 million federal workers currently represented by unions, according to filings in the unions’ lawsuit. Eliminating collective bargaining would allow agencies to alter working conditions and fire or discipline workers more easily, and it could prevent unions from challenging Trump administration initiatives in court.
On the same day Trump issued the executive order, eight federal agencies filed a lawsuit against AFGE and dozens of the union’s local affiliates seeking to invalidate existing union contracts covering hundreds of thousands of workers. Monday’s filing includes declarations from more than 40 union officials detailing the potential impact of Trump’s executive order. AFGE President Everett Kelley said that many of the union’s local councils and affiliates could cease to exist entirely, and that the union would be hobbled by the loss of dues that members pay.
