Labor & Employment Law Daily Wrap Up, LITIGATION NEWS, TRENDS—Union director’s declaration indicates federal agencies are disregarding and/or violating CBAs, parties ordered to meet and confer, (May 22, 2025)

By Brandi O. Brown, J.D.

The district court noted that the D.C. Circuit majority had left the door open for NTEU to “seek injunctive relief” if “a specific agency or subagency deviates from [its] self-imposed rule.”

In a recent memorandum opinion and order, a D.C. district court overseeing a lawsuit brought against the Trump administration by the National Treasury Employees Union (NTEU) over Executive Order 14251 has ordered the parties to meet and confer and submit a joint status report to “provide proposed next steps for this litigation in light of the D.C. Circuit’s May 16, 2025 Order” and to provide a briefing schedule for expected motions.

Specifically, the district court explains that in the D.C. Circuit’s May 16 order staying the district court’s injunction, the appeals court determined that at that time the union had not established irreparable harm and, in so doing, pointed to a federal government FAQ document instructing agencies not to terminate CBAs “until the conclusion of litigation or further guidance from OPM directing such termination.” The appeals court reasoned that this instruction by OPM rendered any harms to the union “speculative.”

District court out D.C. Circuit’s caveat. However, the district court noted that the appeals court “made clear, however, that ‘if a specific agency or subagency deviates from that self-imposed rule, individual units may seek injunctive relief appropriately tailored to any nonspeculative, irreparable harm.’” Given that “clarification,” the court explained, it was instructing the parties to meet and confer and file the joint status report.

“Substantial evidence.” The court also noted that, as it found in its opinion granting the union’s motion for a preliminary injunction in the first place, “NTEU has presented substantial evidence reflecting that certain agencies and subdivisions are disregarding provisions in the respective collective bargaining agreements ‘notwithstanding the lack of the formal cancellation of the collective bargaining agreements.’”

Not collecting dues, not bargaining. It points to a sworn declaration from NTEU’s Director of Field Operations listing “numerous actions certain agencies and subdivisions have taken already that reflect a disregard or violation of the collective bargaining agreements,” which includes things such as agencies stopping payroll deductions for dues payments from NTEU members, causing the loss of millions of dollars in dues for the union; IRS notices to employees affected by the RIF that “explicitly disavow any obligations to bargain or otherwise follow relevant collective bargaining agreement provisions”; agencies refusing to sit at the bargaining table with the union; agencies refusing to participate in grievance proceedings; and arbitrators beginning to stop action on lawfully filed grievances based on the EO.

“While NTEU may not have shown that any agency has formally cancelled a collective bargaining agreement,” the district court explained, “the abovementioned actions demonstrate that certain agencies have in essence disregarded critical provisions of the collective bargaining agreements. Furthermore, the actions demonstrate that certain agencies are operating in accordance with the Executive Order by setting aside core provisions of the FSLMRS that Congress unequivocally deemed to be ‘in the public interest.’”

In case it wasn’t clear. Spelling it out further, the court ended by explaining it was ordering the parties to meet and confer and issue the joint status report “in view of the Circuit’s clarification that NTEU ‘may seek injunctive relief’ ‘if a specific agency or subagency deviates from [the Administration’s] self-imposed rule’ that it will not cancel collective bargaining agreements until the conclusion of litigation or further guidance from OPM directing such termination.”

The district court case is No. 25-0935 (PLF); the D.C. Circuit docket is No. 25-5157.

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