The Office of Personnel Management (OPM) said Thursday that President Trump signed an executive order limiting numerous agency employees from unionizing and instructing the government to stop engaging in any collective bargaining.
The OPM memo references an order from Trump that has yet to be publicly posted, but a fact sheet from the White House claims that the Civil Service Reform Act that allows government workers to unionize “enables hostile Federal unions to obstruct agency management.”
The order targets agencies it says have a national security mission but many of the departments don’t have a strict national security connection.
In addition to all agencies with the Department of Homeland Security, the Department of Defense, the Department of State, and the Department of Veterans Affairs, the order also covers the Treasury Department, all agencies with Health and Human Services, the Environmental Protection Agency, the National Science Foundation, the General Services Administration, and many more.
In total the OPM memo references 18 departments while also including numerous component agencies.
The OPM memo instructs agencies to terminate their collective bargaining agreement.
“Consequently, those agencies and subdivisions are no longer required to collectively bargain with Federal unions,” OPM states in its memo.
“Because the statutory authority underlying the original recognition of the relevant unions no longer applies, unions lose their status as the ‘exclusive[ly] recogni[zed]’ labor organizations for employees of the agencies.”
The OPM memo also says “agencies should cease participating in grievance procedures after terminating their CBA,” an abbreviation for collective bargaining agreements.
The American Federation of Government Employees (AFGE), the largest federal worker union, did not respond to The Hill's request for comment.
The move to restrict unions comes after DHS stripped the bargaining rights of Transportation Safety Administration employees.
AFGE has sued over that matter, arguing Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem has no power to end an already authorized seven-year contract.
“The 2024 CBA has a term of seven years and allows limited midterm bargaining. This collective bargaining agreement, like any other, is a binding contract,” the union wrote in the suit.
Updated at 9:57 p.m. EDT.
Source link
-
-
-
-
