Labor & Employment Law Daily Wrap Up, LITIGATION NEWS, TRENDS—Federal agencies sue unions over collective bargaining agreements, (Mar 28, 2025)

By Brandi O. Brown, J.D.

They allege that “restrictive terms” of collective bargaining agreements have “hamstrung” them from advancing Trump’s top priorities.

In a lawsuit filed against the American Federation of Government Employees (AFGE) District 10 and various of its local unions by the Departments of Defense, Agriculture, Homeland Security, Housing and Urban Development, Justice, Veterans Affairs, as well as the EPA and Social Security Administration, the agencies take aim at collective bargaining agreements that they contend are preventing them from advancing the Trump agenda. Although they particularly call out so-called “midnight” CBAs, signed near the end of President Biden’s term in office, they include all CBAs in their claims.

Executive order. The federal agencies point to the Executive Order issued by Trump on the same day this lawsuit was filed, entitled Exclusions from Federal Labor-Management Relations Programs, as well as the OPM guidance also issued, as cause for the court to issue a declaratory judgment indicating that “they have the power to rescind or repudiate certain specified CBAs, local supplemental agreements, and MOUs with Defendants.” They allege that they “wish to rescind or repudiate those CBAs, including so they can protect national security by developing personnel policies that otherwise would be precluded or hindered by the CBAs.” However, to “ensure legal certainty and avoid unnecessary labor strife, they first seek declaratory relief to confirm that they are legally entitled to proceed with doing so.”

Take care responsibility. “Virtually all” the “midnight CBAs,” they allege, “limit the power of the President and his Executive Branch officials to promptly identify and address underperformance, thus impeding the President’s Take Care Clause responsibility under Article II of the Constitution. And for agencies and employees that work on national security matters, these CBAs also impinge on the President’s efforts to protect the United States from foreign and domestic threats.”

The single count included in the complaint is under the Federal Service Labor-Management Relations Statute (FSLMRS) and 28 U.S.C. § 2201. The agencies “dispute their obligation to continue abiding by the terms of the CBAs because they have been exempted from the FSLMRS by the President’s Executive Order issued pursuant to 5 U.S.C. § 7103(b). That exemption has the legal effect of voiding the extant CBAs.”

FSLMRS. Enacted in 1978, the FSLMRS expresses, among other things, the determination of Congress that “labor organizations and collective bargaining in the civil service are in the public interest.”

The case is No. 6:25-cv-119.

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