US court pauses block on Trump eliminating union bargaining for federal workers

By Daniel Wiessner

July 10 (Reuters) - A U.S. appeals court on Thursday placed a brief pause on a judge's ruling that had blocked President Donald Trump's administration from stripping hundreds of thousands of federal workers of the ability to engage in union bargaining with U.S. agencies.

A panel of the San Francisco-based 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals granted an administrative stay of U.S. District Judge James Donato's June ruling while it decides whether to pause it pending the Trump administration's appeal.

Donato had blocked 21 agencies from implementing a Trump executive order eliminating collective bargaining for large swaths of the federal workforce. He said it was likely unlawful, agreeing with the American Federation of Government Employees and other unions.

The 9th Circuit is scheduled to hear oral arguments on July 17 on the request for a stay. The panel includes Circuit Judges Bridget Bade and Daniel Bress, who are Trump appointees, and John Owens, who was appointed by Democratic President Barack Obama.

AFGE, the White House and the U.S. Department of Justice did not immediately respond to requests for comment.

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.

Donato issued a preliminary injunction that blocks 21 agencies from implementing Trump's order pending the outcome of a trial in the lawsuit by the six unions, who he said "appear to have been deemed hostile to the president."

The judge, an appointee of President Obama, said the unions had established they were likely to prove Trump's executive order had a chilling effect on their right to free speech under the U.S. Constitution's First Amendment.

His ruling followed a decision by a different judge in Washington, D.C., in April that blocked Trump's order from being implemented at seven agencies including the departments of Justice, Treasury, and Health and Human Services.

The D.C. Circuit on May 16 paused that ruling while it considers the Trump administration's appeal. Donato's ruling applies to those seven agencies and the departments of Veterans Affairs, Agriculture, State and Labor, among others.

Trump's executive order exempted agencies that he said "have as a primary function intelligence, counterintelligence, investigative, or national security work," from collective bargaining obligations, significantly expanding an existing exception for workers with duties implicating national security, such as certain employees of the CIA and FBI.

The lawsuits challenging the executive order say it was meant to punish federal worker unions that have sued over Trump's other efforts to overhaul the government, including the mass firings and layoffs of agency employees.

Unions also argue that the vast majority of workers covered by the order do not perform national security or intelligence work.

In separate litigation, the Trump administration filed a pair of lawsuits against AFGE and another union seeking to invalidate existing bargaining agreements in light of Trump's order shortly after he issued it.

A judge in Kentucky in May said the Treasury Department lacked standing to sue over a union contract covering thousands of Internal Revenue Service employees and dismissed the agency's lawsuit. A separate case that eight agencies filed against AFGE is pending in Texas federal court.

The case is American Federation Of Government Employees v. Trump, 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals, No. 25-4014.

For the plaintiffs: Abigail Carter, Ramya Ravindran, Lane Shadgett and J. Alexander Rowell of Bredhoff & Kaiser

For the administration: Tyler Becker and Brett Shumate of the U.S. Department of Justice

Read more:

Trump cannot end union bargaining for federal workers, judge rules

Court gives go-ahead to Trump's plan to halt union bargaining for many federal workers

US judge blocks Trump from ending union bargaining for many federal workers

US judge nixes Treasury's bid to cancel IRS workers' union contract

Trump administration sues to invalidate dozens of union contracts