The Court blocks Trump

A federal judge issued a court order on Friday night that temporarily blocked the Trump administration to strip the collective bargaining rights of hundreds of thousands of federal workers.

Judge Paul L. Friedman, from the United States District Court for the Columbia district, wrote in his report order That the White House policy aimed at weakening unions is “illegal.” Friedman said the court would offer his reasoning for that determination in an upcoming opinion.

At the end of March, President Donald Trump signed an executive order Carving a long list of agencies outside the federal protections of the Labor Law on behalf of “National Security”. But many of the affected employees, including nurses, biologists and parks rangers, do not do any national security work.

Meanwhile, the Administration suggested in its announcement that the president was motivated by compensation. “Certain federal unions have declared the war on the agenda of President Trump”, a White House “Information sheet“In the declared executive order.

Archived unions A couple of demands Aimed at blocking the policy of taking effect, arguing that it was illegal and reprisals. Friedman’s order is applied to the case presented by the National Union of Treasury Employees, which represents the workers of 37 federal agencies.

The court order should prevent the agencies from implementing the policy while the underlying demand progresses, although the Trump administration has repeatedly breached the judicial orders and has shown disdain by the judicial branch.

Liz Shuler, president of the AFL-CiO labor federation, applauded the court order in a statement.

“This was the most significant attack on workers’ rights in history, and if Trump was allowed to do federal workers, he could do it with all workers in the United States, in each workplace and in each industry,” Shuler said.

Saul Loeb through Getty Images

Some workers are already excluded from collective bargaining because their work focuses on the counterintelligence or national security. But Trump’s order would apply to agencies such as the Department of Veterans Affairs, the Food Safety and Inspection Service and the Environmental Protection Agency, where most employees do not approach these functions.

If you are allowed to stand up, Trump’s executive order would severely weaken the federal unions and facilitate much that the administration dismisses employees that the President insufficiently considers loyal. The existing union contracts would be expelled, and workers would lose collective bargaining rights in agencies where they have enjoyed them for decades.

It would also lead to fewer members who pay quotas in federal unions, which the White House considers enemies. Groups such as the NTU and the American Federation of Government employees have brought a series of demands aimed at curbing the administration’s efforts to dismantle federal agencies and expel workers from federal payrolls.

When the NTU filed its complaint to block Trump’s executive order, the union described the reasoning of the administration behind it “absurd”.

“We all know that this has nothing to do with national security and that the real objective here is to make federal employees throughout the government,” said the president of the union, Doreen Greenwald.