COURT ALLOWS TRUMP TO END UNION BARGAINING FOR FEDERAL WORKERS
A federal appeals court Aug. 1 lifted a judge’s order blocking President Trump from stripping hundreds of thousands of federal workers of the ability to engage in union bargaining with U.S. agencies.
A three-judge panel of the San Francisco-based 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals put on hold pending a further appeal an injunction issued by a lower court judge that had been obtained by six unions including the American Federation of Government Employees (AFGE).
Trump’s order exempted more than a dozen federal agencies from obligations to bargain with unions. They include the Departments of Justice, State, Defense, Treasury, and Health and Human Services.
U.S. District Judge James Donato in San Francisco in June had issued the injunction blocking 21 agencies from implementing Trump’s March executive order exempting many federal agencies from obligations to bargain with unions.
Donato concluded Trump’s order retaliated against unions deemed critical of the president and that had sued over his efforts to overhaul the government, including the mass firings of agency employees, violating their right to free speech under the U.S. Constitution’s First Amendment.
But the 9th Circuit panel said Trump’s order on its face “does not express any retaliatory animus,” and it agreed with the Trump administration that the president “would have taken the same action even in the absence of the protected conduct.”
Eliminating collective bargaining would allow agencies to alter working conditions and fire or discipline workers more easily, and it could prevent unions from challenging Trump administration initiatives in court.
