Pro-labor Republicans push Trump to rescind order busting most federal unions

President Trump’s controversial decision last week to sign an executive order stripping hundreds of thousands of federal employees of their collective bargaining rights has drawn the ire of even some House Republicans.

Trump’s order, which cites a rarely used provision of the 1978 Civil Service Reform Act to exclude agencies and agency subcomponents from federal labor law under the guise of national security—despite decades of successful labor-management relationships in both peace and wartime and several implicated agencies’ tenuous at best connection to national security. The edict effectively denies union representation to two-thirds of the federal workforce and three-quarters of feds who are already part of a union bargaining unit.

As labor groups prep for a protracted legal battle over the edict, a group of eight pro-labor House Republicans, led by Rep. Brian Fitzpatrick, R-Pa., on Wednesday urged the president to reverse course.

“Applying this exemption widely across agencies such as the General Services Administration, the Federal Communications Commission, the Social Security Administration and the Department of Health and Human Services could unintentionally affect government efficiency and employee morale,” the group wrote. “Collective bargaining in these agencies has traditionally played a positive role by providing a structured channel for communication and addressing employee concerns, which ultimately supports a more productive and stable workforce and thereby promotes national security.”

The lawmakers also criticized Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem’s decision last month to strip the Transportation Security Administration workforce of its collective bargaining rights, noting that the advent of unions at the agency caused performance, employee morale and retention to “improve substantially.”

Fitzpatrick and Rep. Jared Golden, D-Maine, also introduced legislation Wednesday that would “nullify” Trump’s anti-union edict. The Protect America’s Workforce Act, cosponsored by Reps. Donald Norcross, D-N.J., Nick LaLota, R-N.Y., Mark Pocan, D-Wisc., Michael Turner, R-Ohio, Debbie Dingell, D-Mich., and Michael Lawler, R-N.Y., voids the executive order and bars the administration from spending federal funds to implement it.

The measure also guarantees that any collective bargaining agreement between a federal agency and its workforce that was in effect as of last week “shall have full force and effect through the stated term of the applicable agreement.”

“Improving government efficiency is essential—but sweeping exclusions from collective bargaining are a blunt instrument that risk weakening the very stability and performance we aim to strengthen,” Fitzpatrick said in a statement. “The Protect America’s Workforce Act restores a balanced, targeted approach—protecting bargaining rights where they pose no threat to national security and reinforcing their proven role in supporting morale, accountability and effective governance. We can defend our national security without silencing those who serve it.”

“In his order, President Trump said that federal workers’ rights are incompatible with national security. He is wrong,” Golden said. “Union workers make America stronger every single day, including more than 6,000 federal workers in Maine. Throughout our history, unions have ensured workers got their fair share of this nation’s prosperity. Unions built our middle class and are key to strengthening its future.”

On Thursday, the entire Democratic caucus in the Senate sent their own letter to the president, demanding that he rescind the collective bargaining edict.

“This executive order, which ruthlessly strips collective bargaining agreements for over 1 million federal workers, is the most recent attack your administration has levied against our merit-based civil service in the effort to cut the workforce and replace them with political cronies,” they wrote. “While the CSRA does give the president the authority to limit collective bargaining agreements due to national security concerns, the executive order’s direction to terminate mass swaths of federal employee collective bargaining agreements is clearly intended to broadly dismantle the CSRA, which is specifically designed to grant federal employees the right to collective bargaining as a means to resolve workplace issues while maintaining the smooth functioning of government operations.”

Sen. Susan Collins, R-Maine, who in 2020 sent a letter to Trump warning him not to strip Defense Department workers of their collective bargaining rights, did not respond to a request for comment last week.