US Appeals Court Lifts Block on Trump Executive Order Targeting Federal Union

The appeals court’s majority said the union had failed to show that it would suffer the type of irreparable harm that would justify the preliminary injunction.

The E. Barrett Prettyman Federal Courthouse that houses the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit, in Washington, on July 22, 2014. AP Photo/ Evan Vucci

A federal appeals court on May 17 allowed the Trump administration to go through with its plan to strip collective bargaining by workers at more than a dozen federal agencies.

In a 2–1 ruling, the Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit sided with the Trump administration on arguments that its directive is warranted on national security grounds, overturning a lower court judge’s ruling to block the administration.

That injunction, issued by Judge Paul Friedman of the District Court for the District of Columbia, froze the administration’s executive order targeting collective bargaining after siding with National Treasury Employees Union, which filed the lawsuit.

The order, issued by President Donald Trump in late March, exempted more than a dozen federal agencies from any obligation to bargain with unions. Those agencies include the departments of Justice, State, Defense, Treasury, Veterans Affairs, and Health and Human Services.

A fact sheet released by the White House on the order states that those agencies have “national security missions” that could be obstructed by “hostile federal unions to obstruct agency management.”

The order also allows the administration to “ensure that agencies vital to national security can execute their missions without delay and protect the American people,” and states that the executive branch requires “a responsive and accountable civil service to protect our national security.”

In response, the Treasury union, which represents about 160,000 federal employees, argued that the executive order violates federal workers’ labor rights and the Constitution. It also argued that Trump issued the order to retaliate against the union because of its efforts to stop his actions to reshape and downsize the federal government.

The appeals court’s majority said the union had failed to show that it would suffer the type of irreparable harm that would justify the preliminary injunction issued by Friedman on April 25.

Circuit Judges Karen Henderson and Justin Walker wrote that the lower court judge’s injunction, if they allowed it to remain in effect, would impede Trump’s national security prerogatives.

Trump had correctly relied on a national security exemption to exempt agencies he said have “as a primary function intelligence, counterintelligence, investigative, or national security work,” the pair wrote.

“Preserving the President’s autonomy under a statute that expressly recognizes his national-security expertise is within the public interest,” they wrote. “To hold otherwise would give to the courts what the Constitution gave to Congress and the President.”

Walker and Henderson also said that Friedman failed to have the union pay a financial bond in order to seek relief from the executive order as the suit plays out in the courts. They said that bonds are “generally required” in such cases and noted that it is doubtful “that $0 was the ‘appropriate bond’” in the Treasury union’s lawsuit.

Circuit Judge J. Michelle Childs dissented from the ruling. She argued that the Trump administration had stated that it would not impose key portions of the executive order as the court case proceeds and cast doubt on arguments from government lawyers in their petition seeking emergency relief before the appeals court to block Friedman’s order.

“The Government does not identify imminent harm warranting emergency relief,” Childs wrote. “An extraordinary use of our equitable powers requires more than the vague assertions of harm provided here. In the absence of irreparable injury, the Government’s merits arguments are better suited to the panel designated to hear them.”

Reuters contributed to this report.