Judge blocks Trump's anti-union executive order for IFPTE-represented workers

Source: GovExec.com

U.S. District Judge Paul Friedman said the president “clearly” exceeded his authority when issuing an edict stripping two-thirds of the federal workforce of its collective bargaining rights.

By ERICH WAGNER, GovExec.com
SEPTEMBER 30, 2025 02:13 PM ET

A federal judge in Washington on Tuesday issued an oral decision blocking the Trump administration from terminating the collective bargaining rights of federal workers represented by the International Federation of Professional and Technical engineers across government, finding the president exceeded his authority when he tried to exclude two-thirds of the federal workforce from federal sector labor law.

U.S. District Judge Paul Friedman issued a preliminary injunction from the bench at the end of a hearing held in connection with IFPTE and other unions’ July lawsuit challenging President Trump’s March executive order, which cited a seldom-used provision of the 1978 Civil Service Reform Act to bar unionization at most federal agencies on national security grounds. This marks Friedman’s fourth decision in favor of labor groups in relation to the edict, which was appended in August to exclude even more agencies.

In the case, IFPTE, like several of its sister unions, had argued that the president’s purported determination that wide swathes of the federal government had a primary function of protecting national security was in fact a pretext to retaliate against labor groups for their Firat Amendment-protected conduct, such as challenging the administration’s workforce policies or otherwise pursuing workplace grievances against agency management. After reading lengthy quotes from the executive order, a controversial White House fact sheet asserting that unions had “declared war” on Trump and subsequent guidance from the Office of Personnel Management. The Judge agreed.

“So you’ve got retaliation, you’ve got animus, and you’ve got favoring some unions and not others. It’s clearly ultra vires,” Friedman said, referring to the legal term for when a president has overstepped their authority. “It clearly is . . . That’s in the fact sheet, that’s in the EO and that’s in the OPM guidance. Just reading those demonstrates how the plaintiffs in this case have been irreparably harmed.”

Read more: https://www.govexec.com/workforce/2025/09/judge-blocks-trumps-anti-union-executive-order-ifpte-represented-workers/408486/?oref=ge-home-top-story