Judge blocks Trump executive order gutting federal unions
A federal judge Friday afternoon temporarily blocked the Trump administration from invalidating union contracts for hundreds of thousands of federal employees, the latest in a string of legal setbacks for the president this week.
U.S. District Judge Paul Friedman of the District of Columbia said President Donald Trump’s March directive stripping federal workers at dozens of agencies of their union rights was unlawful, in an order granting a temporary injunction.
“An opinion explaining the Court’s reasoning will be issued within the next few days,” Friedman, an appointee of President Bill Clinton, wrote.
Trump’s executive order from late March canceled union rights at more than two dozen federal agencies and offices, in a major expansion of the administration’s efforts to shrink the federal government. The White House cited national security concerns for terminating workers’ ability to bargain collectively, but the order applied to federal agencies with both direct and indirect links to national security.
Those include most or all of the Departments of Treasury, Defense, Veterans Affairs, State and Justice, and parts of Homeland Security, Health and Human Services, Interior, Energy and Commerce, among others.
Public sector unions have been aggressive in fighting efforts by the U.S. DOGE Service, started by billionaire Trump adviser Elon Musk, to cut federal spending and shed government workers, bringing lawsuits in multiple courts that have halted plans to fire employees.
Union advocates and labor experts have said Trump’s order represents a major escalation in the administration’s campaign to shrink the federal workforce, a drive that began on Trump’s first day in office with an order ending remote work.
In a statement, Doreen Greenwald, president of the National Treasury Employees Union, which filed the lawsuit, called the order “a victory for federal employees, their union rights and the American people they serve.”
“The collective bargaining rights of federal employees will remain intact and the administration’s unlawful agenda to silence the voices of federal employees and dismantle unions is blocked,” Greenwald said.
The White House did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
Trump invoked his authority under the Civil Service Reform Act of 1978 to cancel the union contracts, taking a sweeping view of what constitutes national security. The administration also moved to end union rights for workers at the Environmental Protection Agency, the Federal Communications Commission and the National Science Foundation, among many other agencies.
The order excluded police and firefighter unions. Law enforcement unions were the only ones who endorsed Trump in the 2024 election.
Public sector unions represent about 1.25 million workers in the federal government’s 2.3 million-person bureaucracy, according to Labor Department data.