Pummeled by a wave of legal challenges, the administration went on offense, filing its own federal lawsuit to carry out President Trump’s new executive order against public sector labor unions.
The Justice Department argued that when collective bargaining agreements contradict a president’s priorities, such as bringing federal workers back to work, the agreements must give way to the elected chief executive.
Mr. Trump’s lawyers are asking a judge to proactively declare that presidents have the power to terminate previously reached agreements.
“When inflexible CBAs obstruct presidential and agency head capacity to ensure accountability and improve performance, all citizens pay the price,” argued Emily Hall, a Justice Department lawyer.
The case, filed in federal court in Texas, challenges collective bargaining agreements for some employees at the Defense, Agriculture, House and Urban Development, Justice and Veterans Affairs departments, and the Environmental Protection Agency.
“We are taking this fight directly to the public-sector unions,” said Attorney General Pamela Bondi. “By affirmatively suing in Texas, we are aggressively protecting President Trump’s efforts to ensure unions no longer interfere in the national security functions of the government.”
Some parts of the government have long been deemed too critical to national security to be subject to collective bargaining. Mr. Trump, in his executive order signed Thursday, vastly expanded the universe of agencies excluded from collective bargaining.
They range from the Food and Drug Administration to U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services to the Animal and Plant Health Inspection Service.
The American Federation of Government Employees said the order affects more than a million employees.
The order has also drawn fierce condemnation from labor unions and congressional Democrats.
“This order claims to be putting national security first, but we all know Trump is doing nothing of the sort,” said Rep. Bennie G. Thompson, the top Democrat on the House Homeland Security Committee. “He is using national security as an excuse to further demoralize and inflict whatever pain he can on the Federal workforce as his other efforts are floundering in the courts.”
