Judge blocks Trump admin from eliminating federal workers' union bargaining

A federal judge has blocked the Trump administration from eliminating union bargaining for thousands of federal workers.

U.S. District Judge James Donato, an Obama appointee, ruled Tuesday for the American Federation of Government Employees and five other unions, deciding that President Trump's executive order to allow several federal agencies to dispense with union bargaining is likely unlawful, The Hill news outlet reported.

Donato wrote in the opinion that the right for federal workers to unionize and collectively bargain for better employment conditions has been in place for more than 60 years, and Trump's executive order threatened that “long-standing status quo.” 

The unions that filed that lawsuit “appear to have been deemed hostile to the president,” Donato said.

He prevented 21 federal agencies from following Trump's executive order until the trial's outcome for the unions' lawsuit. The case has yet to have court proceedings scheduled, but Donato said he would set a trial date in a separate order.

The six unions sued the Trump administration in April, following the president signing the executive order directing multiple agencies to end the unions' contracts by saying that a provision of the federal civil service law allows such exceptions for national security agencies.

The White House had argued that the Civil Service Reform Act of 1978, which allowed government workers to unionize, “enables hostile Federal unions to obstruct agency management.”

Donato wrote that the executive branch's national security judgment is “entitled to deference and significant weight,” but that courts do not defer to the branch's reading of the First Amendment, even when national security interests “are said to be at stake.”

AFGE National President Everett Kelley praised the ruling, saying, “President Trump revoked our members’ union rights in retaliation for our advocacy on behalf of federal workers and the American people, and we are grateful that Judge Donato saw through his disingenuous ‘national security’ justification and has ordered the immediate restoration of their rights.”