Federal Judge Hits Pause on Trump’s Move to End Collective Bargaining for Most Federal Workers

A federal judge has thrown a wrench into President Donald Trump’s latest executive order that aimed to strip collective bargaining rights from most federal workers. On Friday, U.S. District Judge Paul Friedman issued a temporary block on the order after the National Treasury Employees Union (NTEU) filed a lawsuit. This union, which represents about 160,000 federal employees, argued that the move would not only violate labor rights, but also the Constitution itself.

The union warned that if the order went through, they’d lose two-thirds of their members and half their dues. That’s the kind of math that keeps union treasurers up at night. The order would have excused over a dozen federal agencies—including Justice, State, Defense, Treasury, Veterans Affairs, and Health and Human Services—from even having to talk to unions at all. Apparently, someone thought silence was golden.

This executive order would impact around 75% of the nearly one million federal workers represented by unions, and it would broaden an existing rule that already lets national security agencies like the FBI and CIA skip collective bargaining.

The U.S. Treasury Department isn’t just watching from the sidelines, either—they’ve filed their own lawsuit against the NTEU to nix a collective bargaining agreement involving IRS employees. The courtroom drama is definitely not lacking in plot twists.

Trump’s order is part of a bigger push to shrink the federal government’s size, making it easier to discipline and fire workers, as well as shake up their working conditions. But for now, Judge Friedman’s temporary injunction will keep things as they are until the NTEU’s lawsuit is resolved. He’s promised to explain his ruling in more detail soon and has given both sides a week to hash out the next steps.

It’s clear this legal tug-of-war over federal workers’ rights is far from settled—and the nation’s unionized employees are watching every move.