President Trump issued an Executive Order expanding restrictions on federal employee unions, citing national security concerns. The order excludes agencies like the Bureau of Reclamation, Department of Commerce, and NASA from union representation.
“[B]loat, bureaucracy and a fixed mindset”
This headline is a quote from OPM’s Director, Scott Kupor. Kudos to Mr. Kupor for a forthright explanation and an articulate summation of how the Trump administration is proceeding to restructure the federal government. Rather than engaging in vague descriptions and oblique references, he describes what is now happening in government today and the logic underlying the changes. More on his explanation is at the end of this article, and how it applies to the latest Executive Order from President Trump.
Initial Restrictions on Federal Employee Unions
On March 27, 2025, President Trump issued an Executive Order that significantly expanded agencies where employees would be excluded from union representation. It targeted major agencies. Guidance issued by OPM directed agencies on how to implement the new Order throughout the government.
While no final court decisions have been issued, on August 1, 2025, a three-judge panel of the Ninth U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals granted an emergency stay of a district court’s preliminary injunction that had blocked implementation of Executive Order 14251. The Order and court decisions, such as the one from the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals, are significantly altering the role of unions in government by halting their ability to negotiate and delaying agencies from implementing change in the federal government’s internal structure.
While we do not know the final outcome of these restrictions, the Trump administration is not waiting for further court decisions to further restrict unions’ involvement in federal agencies.
Adding More Restrictions to Federal Employee Unions
On August 28, 2025, President Trump issued another Executive Order. Entitled Further Exclusions from the Federal Labor-Management Relations Program, the new Order expanded the number of agencies restricted from having unions representing employees based on national security concerns.
These additional exclusions include:
- Units in the Bureau of Reclamation with primary responsibility for operating, managing, or maintaining hydropower facilities
- Agencies or subdivisions of the Department of Commerce
- The International Trade Administration
- Office of the Commissioner for Patents and subordinate units, Patent and Trademark Office
- Subdivisions of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration
- National Environmental Satellite, Data, and Information Service
- National Weather Service
- National Aeronautics and Space Administration
- United States Agency for Global Media.
The fact sheet accompanying the latest Executive Order emphasizes that collective bargaining agreements (CBAs) have hindered the ability of these agencies to swiftly implement policy changes, especially when national security is at stake. For example, ICE was previously blocked from modifying cybersecurity policies due to union negotiation requirements.
The fact sheet also states that even “when changes are permissible under CBAs, agencies must complete ‘midterm’ union bargaining, which can delay the implementation of time-sensitive national security measures.”
The fact sheet accompanying the new Executive Order explains the rationale. The Patent Office, for example, does not immediately jump out as an agency engaged in national intelligence work. But, according to the fact sheet:
The Invention Secrecy Act tasks the PTO with reviewing inventions made in the United States, assessing whether their release could harm national security, and if so, issuing secrecy orders that prevent public disclosure. Effectively performing this work is essential to ensuring U.S. inventions with military or other national security applications do not fall into enemy hands.
Channeling President Franklin Roosevelt on Federal Employee Unions
The Trump administration clearly states its opposition to unions representing federal employees as making the government less efficient, less productive and less response to the people served by the government.
In this regard, he is more clearly aligned with President Roosevelt than Presidents like Jimmy Carter or Joe Biden.
In his August 16, 1937, letter to Luther C. Steward, president of the National Federation of Federal Employees (NFFE), President Roosevelt wrote:
- He affirmed “the right of employees to organize” is fundamental.
- He warned that the “process of collective bargaining, as usually understood, cannot be transplanted into the public service.”
- Government officials do not operate like private employers—they manage public programs on behalf of all citizens, so union negotiations over policy or conditions could undermine democratic governance.
- He wrote: “The employer is the whole people, who speak by means of laws enacted by their representatives in Congress.”
National Security and Federal Employee Unions
While the federal government’s labor relations program has been set in law since the passage of the Civil Service Reform Act, the law recognizes the responsibility of the president to protect national security.
The statute’s wording gives the president considerable authority to protect national security. While this law has been in effect since 1978, President Trump is broadly interpreting this language. 5 U.S. Code § 7103 reads, in part:
The President may issue an order suspending any provision of this chapter with respect to any agency, installation, or activity located outside the 50 States and the District of Columbia, if the President determines that the suspension is necessary in the interest of national security.
With the several executive orders cited above, President Trump has eliminated the representation of most federal employees by federal employee unions.
What Will Happen Next?
No one can accurately predict what the courts will do on this issue. There will likely be different court decisions with different conclusions and it will go to the US Supreme Court for a decision.
That process could take months or more than a year. In the meantime, agencies are moving out to implement the executive orders.
This is undoubtedly putting a large strain on the financial sheets for federal employee unions. It will curb their ability to pay legal expenses for going to court, their ability to slow down or eliminate changes made in government operations, and enable the administration to move out more quickly to make changes.
While courts have been reluctant to interfere with the ability of the president to make decisions on national security, they are also likely to recognize the role of Congress in making laws that may infringe on how the federal government is managed. If the goal of the administration is to eliminate unions in government, that will probaby require Congress to rescind the labor relations portion of the Civil Service Reform Act.
The ability of the administration to do that will depend on that happens in mid-term elections. Unions effectively support Democrats’ political positions or Democrat candidates in elections. The Trump administration undoubtedly sees unions as having an active organization supporting Democrats within the federal government and operating at the expense of the government. That was evident in President Trump’s first term and remains true in his second term.
This means Democrats in Congress will not support removing the labor relations statute and the ability of unions to operate in the federal government. There would have to be a Republican supermajority in Congress to accomplish that. While political events can quickly turn and are unpredictable, this event is unlikely.
The next Democrat to occupy the White House, at least among the current likely candidates, would quickly jettison the Trump executive orders on labor relations just as President Biden did upon assuming office.
The current turmoil in the federal labor relations program will play out in the courts and in the next one or two national election cycles. While predicting the future with accuracy is always fraught with unknown events that can interfere with the prediction, federal employees and federal employee unions will be subject to several years of significant changes in how the government operates. That is now always a negative chain of events.
OPM Director Scott Kupor is more open in his opinions in reflecting on government operations than any OPM director has been in the past sixty years. In his most recent blog, he captured in an articulate summation this administration’s approach to government operations:
In 1977 Bert Lance, then Director of the Office of Management and Budget, coined the phrase “If it ain’t broke, don’t fix it.” Lance apparently – I say “apparently” because the source document no longer exists (or at least is not accessible in any web search that I have done) – was referring to calls for increasing the efficiency of government by streamlining bureaucracy. The meaning of the phrase – which pervades today – was to effect change where required, but not to re-invent the wheel by trying to improve areas that were functioning well.
Interestingly, the Carter Administration tried to overhaul the federal civil service – a topic that is front and center in today’s politics. Among other things, the 1978 Civil Service Reform Act sponsored by the Carter Administration established the Office of Personnel Management – that I now have the privilege to oversee – and introduced several reforms aimed at reducing government inefficiencies and increasing accountability of federal personnel. The administration’s track record was mixed at best, in part due to resistance from labor unions and from the federal employees themselves.
Unfortunately, the legacy of the Carter Administration’s attempts at reform may have in fact been Lance’s quote alone. Well meaning, no doubt – it seems perfectly logical we shouldn’t fix things that aren’t broken. And that is what the federal government has done – become a static organization that is perfectly comfortable with leaving good enough alone. That is something that is wrong with government today – Lance’s admonition has led to bloat, bureaucracy and a fixed mindset that makes innovation, efficiency and bold thinking anathema to the day-to-day operations of government.
In other words, the administration sees the government as one that is broken and needs to be fixed. The “fix” being pursued is to overhaul the current system and then establish a more effective government.
While federal employee unions and perhaps most federal employees do not agree, that is the environment in which they are now working. Turmoil and change will likely be the dominant features of government for the immediate future.
