Appeals Court Lifts Block On Trump Executive Order Targeting Federal Worker Unions

A federal appeals court has lifted a lower-court order that prevented the federal government from implementing President Donald Trump’s plan to end collective bargaining by workers at more than a dozen federal agencies.

In a 2-1 ruling Friday, the D.C. Circuit Court of Appeals said U.S. District Court Judge Paul Friedman appeared to have erred last month when he froze Trump’s executive order on the subject.

The appeals court’s majority said there was insufficient evidence that the National Treasury Employees Union faced “irreparable harm” that would justify the preliminary injunction, Friedman said in his ruling.

Judges Karen Henderson, a George H. W. Bush appointee, and Justin Walker, a Trump appointee, said the national security exception the president invoked in federal labor relations law is an added reason for courts to tread lightly.

“Preserving the President’s autonomy under a statute that expressly recognizes his national-security expertise is within the public interest,” Henderson and Walker wrote.

Judge Michelle Childs, a Biden appointee, dissented. She noted that the administration had agreed not to implement the key parts of the executive order as the litigation played out. That undercut the notion that the government needed emergency relief from the appeals court, she said.

“How can the Government argue that the district court injunction will cause irreparable injury when the Government itself voluntarily imposed that same constraint?” Childs asked.

The National Treasury Employees Union said Trump’s order threatened to end the union representation for about 100,000 federal workers, or roughly two-thirds of NTEU’s membership. An NTEU spokesperson did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

Henderson and Walker also faulted Friedman, a Clinton appointee, for failing to make the union post a financial bond in order to get relief from Trump’s order while the suit progresses. Trump issued a directive in March that the Justice Department urge judges to require such bonds in every case where litigants seek urgent relief from a federal government policy.

The appeals court panel’s majority noted Friday that such bonds are “generally required” and added that they “doubt that $0 was the appropriate bond” in the union’s case.