Federal Union Files Lawsuit Over Bargaining Rights

A federal employee union is suing over an executive order issued by President Donald Trump that would strip the collective bargaining rights of 18 departments, the Hill reported.

The executive order issued last week directed agencies to terminate agreed-upon collective bargaining agreements and to "cease participating in grievance procedures."

"The President's sweeping Executive Order is inconsistent with this narrow authority. The Administration's own issuances show that the President's exclusions are not based on national security concerns, but instead a policy objective of making federal employees easier to fire and political animus against federal sector unions," the National Treasury Employees Union wrote in its lawsuit.

The order targets agencies in the Treasury Department, the Department of Health and Human Services, the Environmental Protection Agency, the National Science Foundation, and the General Services Administration.

The Civil Service Reform Act gives employees the right to unionize but has exceptions for national security, the Hill reported.

The suit comes after the Trump administration filed its own suit asking a judge to say their plan to terminate collective bargaining agreements was legal, the Hill said.

The NTEU's suit says the Trump administration's ultimate goal is to make it easier to fire federal employees.

"The OPM Guidance on the Executive Order shows that the President's primary motivation for the mass exclusion of agencies from the Statute's coverage is to make their employees easier to fire," the lawsuit reads. "The same White House Fact Sheet reveals the secondary motivation for the Executive Order: political retribution. In justifying the Executive Order, the Fact Sheet states that '[c]ertain Federal unions have declared war on President Trump's agenda. Neither facilitating employee firings nor political retribution is an appropriate basis for invoking Section 7103(b)(1)'s national security exemption."

• Trump Ends Collective Bargaining at Agencies Involved With National Security
• UAW's Fain Takes Hard Line on Tariffs, Collective Bargaining