JUDGE BLOCKS TRUMP EFFORT TO END COLLECTIVE BARGAINING RIGHTS FOR PUBLIC WORKERS
FLASH!
At least half a dozen USAID employees who spoke to reporters after they thought they had been fired by the Trump administration have now received notices from the foreign aid agency’s internal human resources office that they are facing investigation for participating in interviews.
The workers, received an email in recent days carrying the subject line, “Administrative inquiry.” The email accused them of having “engaged with the press/media without authorization” and threatened “disciplinary action” including “removal from the U.S. Agency for International Development.” The action of USAID came after a federal judge blocked Trump’s order withdrawing union rights from federal workers (see item below).
Randy Chester, the vice president of the American Foreign Service Association, which is the union that represents USAID employees, blasted the move as “total intimidation.” And Abbe Lowell, a veteran Washington, D.C., attorney defending rights of federal workers, declared , “Federal employees do not surrender their constitutional rights when they take public service jobs.”
In April, President Trump issued an executive order rescinding the longstanding rights of public employees in nearly a dozen government agencies and departments to join unions that represent them in collective bargaining. He also moved to end those unions’ existing contracts with the government.
Shortly afterward, a federal judge temporarily ·blocked the order, which relied on an obscure wartime provision in the federal labor laws that authorizes the president to exempt agencies engaged in national security work, though most of the employees affected had nothing to do with national security.
U.S. District Judge Paul Friedman was acting on a lawsuit filed the National Treasury Employees Union, arguing that Trump exceeded his powers under the collective bargaining laws. At the court hearing, Judge Friedman, suggested that the order, affecting employees at the departments of Justice, Health and Human Services, Treasury and Energy, the Office of Personnel Management, and other major agencies, appear targeted toward unions that have opposed his agenda, rather than national security concerns.
The judge ordered that federal agencies resume engaging with their employees’ unions and to resume collecting dues payments, among other normal employee relations business.
Politico, 4/25
