Just days before Labor Day, President Trump continued his assault on the collective bargaining rights of federal employees.
In an Aug. 28 executive order, Trump banned collective bargaining at more than a half-dozen agencies. The targeted agencies are the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA); the U.S. Agency for Global Media; the International Trade Administration and the Patent and Trademark Office within the Commerce Department; and the National Weather Service and National Environmental Satellite, Data and Information Service within the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA).
“This latest executive order is another clear example of retaliation against federal employee union members who have bravely stood up against his anti-worker, anti-American plan to dismantle the federal government,” AFGE National President Everett Kelley said.
“Several agencies including NASA and the National Weather Service have already been hollowed out by reckless DOGE cuts, so for the administration to further disenfranchise the remaining workers in the name of ‘efficiency’ is immoral and abhorrent.”
The agencies being excluded from collective bargaining are in addition the more than 950,000 federal employees at nearly 20 agencies that Trump targeted with his March 27 union-busting executive order. Action on that order had been delayed due to litigation filed by AFGE and other unions, but on Aug. 1 a three-judge panel of the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals granted an emergency stay of a district court’s preliminary injunction that had blocked implementation of the order.
Since the injunction was lifted, the administration has moved to eliminate collective bargaining at various agencies including the Department of Veterans Affairs, the Environmental Protection Agency, Food Safety and Inspection Service, US Citizenship and Immigration Services, and the Federal Emergency Management Agency.
“AFGE is preparing an immediate response and will continue to fight relentlessly to protect the rights of our members, federal employees and their union,” Kelley said.
Since taking office in January 2025, President Trump has issued a series of unlawful executive orders, and taken several unlawful actions, seeking to shut down congressionally mandated agencies, fire and displace federal workers, outlaw their unions, and gut merit systems protections.
Read More
A federal judge has ordered the Department of Veterans Affairs to reinstate the union contract covering 320,000 VA employees represented by AFGE in a major victory over the implementation of President Trump’s union-busting executive orders.
Read More
As the Department of Homeland Security shutdown reaches the one-month mark with no end in sight, AFGE leaders are calling on Congress to ensure all DHS workers are paid.
Read More
