Federal Appeals Court Allows Trump to Strip Union Rights from Government Workers

A federal appeals court has upheld President Trump's executive order removing collective bargaining rights from hundreds of thousands of federal employees. The court ruled the order was justified by national security concerns, overturning a lower court decision that had temporarily blocked the policy.

A federal appeals court has given the green light to President Donald Trump’s directive removing collective bargaining rights from hundreds of thousands of government employees, overturning a previous court decision that had temporarily halted the policy.

The three-judge panel from the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in San Francisco ruled Thursday that Trump’s 2025 executive order was properly justified by national security considerations when it eliminated union negotiation rights for large numbers of federal workers.

Labor unions had contended that Trump issued the directive as payback for their opposition to other administration policies, claiming it violated their First Amendment rights. However, the appeals court determined that Trump would have implemented the same policy regardless of any intent to penalize unions.

Circuit Judge Daniel Bress, appointed by Trump, wrote in the court’s opinion that Trump’s directive “expresses that the President’s primary – if not only – concern with union activity was its interference with national security.”

The elimination of collective bargaining rights will enable government agencies to modify workplace conditions and terminate or discipline employees with greater ease, while potentially stopping unions from legally challenging Trump administration policies in court.

The appellate panel overturned a decision from last year by U.S. District Judge James Donato in San Francisco, who had temporarily suspended Trump’s executive order. The 9th Circuit had already put Donato’s decision on hold in August while the appeal was being considered. A separate federal appeals court in Washington, D.C., had similarly paused a comparable ruling in May that had also blocked Trump’s directive.

Neither the White House nor the unions involved in the litigation provided immediate responses when asked for comment.

Trump’s executive order removed collective bargaining requirements from more than twelve federal agencies, including the Departments of Justice, State, Defense, Treasury, and Health and Human Services.

The presidential directive exempted agencies that Trump described as having “as a primary function intelligence, counterintelligence, investigative, or national security work” from union negotiation requirements, substantially broadening an existing exemption for employees whose jobs involve national security matters.