Judge Blocks Trump Executive Order Again

A federal judge on Friday temporarily blocked the Trump administration from enforcing an executive order that a major federal workers’ union says would gut collective bargaining rights for hundreds of thousands of employees.

U.S. District Judge Paul Friedman ruled that a critical part of President Donald Trump’s March 27 order cannot be applied at about three dozen federal agencies and departments where employees are represented by the National Treasury Employees Union (NTEU).

The NTEU, which represents close to 160,000 federal employees, brought the lawsuit against the administration, arguing that the order would devastate its operations by slashing more than half of its revenue and causing it to lose over two-thirds of its membership if the court didn’t intervene.

Judge Friedman issued a brief two-page order but indicated he would follow up with a more detailed opinion in the coming days. While the ruling is only a preliminary step and not a final decision on the merits of the case, Friedman ordered both sides to submit proposals by May 2 on how the lawsuit should move forward.

While some agencies like the FBI are already exempt from laws requiring collective bargaining because of their national security functions, the union pointed out that no prior president had attempted to use the national security exemption to wipe out bargaining rights for entire cabinet-level agencies.

The union argued that Trump’s move was an attempt to enable mass firings and carry out “political vengeance” against unions opposing his policies. “The President’s use of the Statute’s narrow national security exemption to undo the bulk of the Statute’s coverage is plainly at odds with Congress’s expressed intent,” union attorneys said.

The Justice Department, defending Trump’s order, argued that blocking it would interfere with the president’s responsibility to ensure that federal workers are prepared to safeguard national security. “It is vital that agencies with a primary purpose of national security are responsive and accountable to the American people,” government attorneys wrote.

The IRS is the largest bargaining unit under the NTEU’s umbrella, and the Trump administration moved quickly after the executive order, suing an IRS union chapter in Kentucky to try to end their collective bargaining agreement.

The NTEU contends that the administration has effectively admitted that many of its members have no national security functions. Workers impacted by the executive order include employees from the Health and Human Services Department, the Energy Department, the Environmental Protection Agency, and the Federal Communications Commission.

The union warned it could lose around $25 million in dues revenue over the next year, with some agencies already halting the automatic deduction of union dues from employees’ paychecks.

“In the absence of preliminary injunctive relief, NTEU may no longer be able to exist in a manner that is meaningful to the federal workers for whom it fights,” union lawyers argued.

The administration’s lawyers countered that the president’s national security decisions are generally entitled to judicial deference. “Executive actions that are facially valid that is, within the lawful authority of the executive are entitled to a presumption of regularity,” they wrote.