WASHINGTON, D.C. (Law360) — Since returning to the White House in January, President Donald Trump has taken a number of actions to pare back the U.S. government workforce, including widespread layoffs and agency restructurings, but federal workers’ unions have sought to curb those efforts by filing a flood of lawsuits — with mixed results.
Often joined as plaintiffs by advocacy groups and state officials, unions have been able to block some of Trump’s actions through injunctions. But their successes have not been total or final, and government employees are experiencing instability that could be felt for a long time, said Suzanne Summerlin, a solo practitioner who represents federal workers and unions.
“This level of volatility has been really unprecedented and has taken a toll on the federal workforce that I’m not sure when, if ever, it will ever recover to its former glory,” Summerlin said.
Unions that represent federal workers expected the second Trump term to bring challenges similar to those they faced during his first time in office, when he issued executive orders limiting unions’ power and weakening job security for federal workers, said Karla Walter, a senior fellow at the liberal Center for American Progress.
But Trump’s actions concerning the status of federal workers have been more widespread than even his first term, Walter said.
“In comparison to what we’re seeing now, it was this death-by-1,000-paper-cuts moment,” Walter said, of the first Trump term.
Some of Trump’s actions in his second term have included issuing a broad directive for agencies to lay off workers and issuing an executive order attempting to end collective bargaining rights for a large swath of the federal workforce. Trump has also shuttered multiple federal agencies and offices and fired officials at the Federal Labor Relations Authority and Merit Systems Protection Board, cutting off the administrative processes for workers to challenge actions against them.
Courts have taken center stage in the legal back and forth over changes to the federal workforce.
Those court fights have included litigation over Trump’s March executive order seeking to exclude large chunks of the federal government from the collective bargaining regime laid out in the Federal Service Labor-Management Relations Statute. The order claimed to exclude federal workers in national security roles, citing an exemption in the statute, but unions have argued the order exceeded the exemption’s scope and that Trump targeted organizations that opposed his political agenda.
A federal judge in Washington, D.C., issued two injunctions blocking the order, and a California judge did the same on June 25, saying a group of unions “raised serious questions under the First Amendment that warrant further litigation.” The D.C. Circuit stayed the two injunctions out of Washington, D.C., federal court.
A Kentucky federal judge in April also rejected the U.S. Department of the Treasury’s request for an order declaring it has the ability to end labor contracts with a union, and a similar lawsuit is underway in Texas.
Maxford Nelsen, director of research and government affairs at the Freedom Foundation, a think tank that advocates for public employees’ ability to opt out of unions, said the ongoing battle over the bargaining executive order has the most potential for lasting impact.
While future administrations may reverse many of Trump’s actions, setting a precedent that presidents can end bargaining for certain workers would be a major shift, said Nelsen, who served on the Federal Service Impasses Panel during the first Trump term.
“It’s really a fight about how these agencies are going to operate at the end of the day,” Nelsen said. “Are they going to be responsive to the democratically elected administration that’s in place at the time, or are they going to be on autopilot subject to the collective bargaining rules that may run for four, eight, 10 years for a stretch irrespective of the administration that’s in power?”
Another major source of litigation has involved various ways Trump has sought to cut the scope of the federal government, including a February executive order directing widespread reductions in force and an Office of Personnel Management initiative for agencies to cut probationary and first-year employees.
A federal judge in California blocked the reductions in force order in May, while a Washington, D.C., federal judge denied unions an injunction in a similar case. The Ninth Circuit left in place the California decision and the litigation continues in Washington.
The Fourth Circuit and U.S. Supreme Court have stayed early orders that unions, states and other groups won blocking the OPM action from taking effect.
One major question over how the cases will play out is the U.S. Supreme Court’s recent decision limiting the use of universal injunctions, Summerlin said. The decision could make it more difficult for unions to get long-term orders blocking administration actions, she said, which could undermine the point of turning to courts by making any relief less meaningful.
“The widespread preliminary injunctions are what we need in order to prevent irreparable harm to the federal workforce,” Summerlin said. “There’s very much a question of whether that’s going to be able to happen or if this is all going to start feeling like an exercise in futility.”
Michael Fallings, a partner at Tully Rinckey PLLC who represents federal workers, said a major issue to monitor for the remainder of the year is whether the challenged reductions in force will be coming. He said federal workers are seeing their jobs as being less secure than they have in the past, in part aided by court decisions that have allowed Trump room to undertake his initiatives.
“I think these federal employees are thinking, ‘My job could be gone tomorrow, and I may not have the ability to challenge an adverse action that I did six months ago,'” Fallings said.
