Labor & Employment Law Daily Wrap Up, LITIGATION NEWS, TRENDS—Dueling lawsuits filed by employee union and Trump administration, (Apr 1, 2025)

By Brandi O. Brown, J.D.

The union filed suit in response to Trump’s executive order that it alleges “guts Congress’s federal sector collective bargaining regime,” whereas the Trump administration alleges that it is “hamstrung” by the “restrictive terms of” CBAs.

In an executive order issued by the President on March 27, 2025, President Trump took aim at collective bargaining with federal unions at many federal departments and agencies, specifically those with national security missions. In the order, entitled Exclusions from Federal Labor-Management Relations Programs, Trump amended a prior executive order to include additional exclusions and the agencies and subdivisions added are no longer required to collectively bargain with federal unions. The White House also issued a fact sheet on the order.

Treasury’s lawsuit. The day after issuing the order, the United States Department of Treasury, citing the new order and related guidance issued by OPM, filed suit in federal district court in Kentucky against the National Treasury Employees Union Chapter 73, and asked the court for a declaratory judgment indicating that it has the “power to rescind or repudiate the national CBA, as well as local supplemental agreements and MOUs (collectively, CBAs) with the National Treasury Employees Union (NTEU) and Defendant, one of the local chapters of NTEU that implements and executes the terms of the CBA in Kentucky.” The Treasury department alleges that “many Executive Branch departments and agencies have been hamstrung in advancing” the President’s top priorities—purportedly improving the “efficiency and efficacy” of the federal work force and promoting national security—by the “restrictive terms of collective bargaining agreements (CBAs).”

The case is No. 2:25-cv-00049-DCR.

NTEU’s lawsuit. Yesterday, the National Treasury Employees Union filed its own lawsuit against the Trump administration in the D.C. federal district court, alleging that the executive order “guts Congress’s federal sector collective bargaining regime” and “strips the collective bargaining rights of hundreds of thousands of federal employees across a number of agencies.” It alleges that while Congress gave the President narrow authority to exclude some agencies from the collective bargaining statute, the President “may use that authority only if the agency primarily does intelligence, counterintelligence, investigative, or national security work, and only if the statute cannot be applied ‘in a manner consistent with national security requirements and considerations.’” However, it contends, the “sweeping Executive Order is inconsistent with this narrow authority.”

The counts include claims of ultra vires action and First Amendment retaliation.

The case is No. 1:25cv935.

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