A flicker of momentum has returned to Donald Trump’s long-running crusade against federal worker unions—at least for now.
On Thursday, a federal appeals court out of San Francisco hit the brakes on a lower court decision that had thrown a wrench into Trump’s executive order aimed at stripping collective bargaining rights from hundreds of thousands of federal employees. The order, already steeped in controversy, could now inch closer to revival while legal arguments continue to unfold.
The 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals granted what’s known as an “administrative stay,” a temporary freeze on U.S. District Judge James Donato’s ruling last month that blocked 21 federal agencies from enforcing Trump’s sweeping directive. Donato, appointed under President Obama, had found the order likely unconstitutional and agreed with six major federal unions that it violated workers’ free speech and organizational rights.
That pause sets the stage for a high-stakes hearing scheduled for July 17, where the appellate panel—featuring two Trump appointees and one from the Obama era—will weigh whether to put Donato’s injunction on hold during the full appeal.
Trump’s executive order, if enforced, would bulldoze a decades-old framework that allows federal unions to bargain over working conditions, file grievances, and challenge administrative policies. Instead, agencies would gain more unilateral power—over workloads, firings, and disciplinary actions—without negotiating with the unions that represent their workforces.
Donato’s ruling followed a similar clash in Washington, D.C., where another judge had halted the executive order’s enforcement across seven key departments, including Justice, Treasury, and Health and Human Services. That decision, too, has been paused while it works its way through the courts.
The Trump order carves out an expansive exception for employees involved in national security, sweeping in not just the usual intelligence roles but entire agencies, some with only tangential ties to classified operations. Critics say it’s a pretext to sideline unions that have stood in Trump’s path in court battles over government staffing cuts and agency overhauls.
Not stopping there, Trump’s administration also fired back with its own lawsuits, attempting to strike down existing bargaining agreements. In one such case, a Kentucky judge rejected the Treasury Department’s attempt to nullify a union contract for IRS workers, calling it legally hollow. Another challenge from eight agencies against the American Federation of Government Employees is still live in a Texas courtroom.
At stake isn’t just contract language or procedural norms—what’s unraveling is a fight over the very role of labor in the federal workplace, and whether a president can unilaterally silence it. For now, that fight is paused—but far from over.
