A coalition of unions sued the Trump administration Friday over its directive to agencies to terminate their collective bargaining agreements with federal employee unions.
President Trump last week signed an order directing 18 agencies to end the union contracts, citing a provision of the federal civil service law that allows such exceptions for national security agencies.
But the unions argue Trump showed his hand in a fact sheet accompanying the order that complained about “hostile Federal unions” that had “declared war on President Trump’s agenda” by launching numerous suits challenging his policies.
“The vast overbreadth of the list of excluded agencies and the incongruity between the stated rationale of national security and those agencies’ primary functions would itself raise questions that the invocation of national security was pretextual,” the suit states.
“But here there is no need to speculate as to the true rationale behind the Exclusion Order. The White House made clear that it was eliminating federal labor law protections for the vast majority of federal workers in response to constitutionally-protected speech and petitioning activity by Plaintiffs and other federal employee unions in opposition to executive actions by the Trump Administration.”
The suit includes a number of claims, including that the Trump administration violated the First Amendment by targeting unions due to their activities.
It also argues that the move violates the Fifth Amendment, stripping unions of due process while sidestepping their obligations under already-signed contracts.
The suit is the second from unions challenging the order. The National Treasury Employees Union sued earlier this week.
The Trump administration also took the unusual move of filing its own legal action in Texas last week, making the first move in litigation by asking a judge to declare as legal its plans to terminate the contracts.
That suit was filed in a single-judge district in Texas, possibly setting the stage for a square off in the Supreme Court.
