Executive Order: Exclusions from Federal Labor-Management Relations Programs

Last updated on 3/28/25
*Updates will be posted as more details become available. 

Executive Order: Exclusions from Federal Labor-Management Relations Programs
Issued: March 27, 2025

Summary:

On March 27, 2025, President Trump issued an Executive Order entitled, “Exclusions from Federal Labor-Management Relations Programs”[1] (“Federal Unions EO”) to end collective bargaining with unions in any Department or agency the President determines, “has as a primary function intelligence, counterintelligence, investigative, or national security work.”[2]

The President’s Federal Unions EO amends an Executive Order issued by President Carter in 1979[3] to add to the list of Departments and agencies exempt from coverage by the federal government’s labor-management relations program. These newly added Departments and agencies include:

• The Department of State
• The Department of Defense (except that the Secretary may suspend application of the EO to any subdivisions of the department)
• The Department of the Treasury (except the Bureau of Engraving and Printing)
• The Department of Veterans Affairs (except that the Secretary may suspend application of the EO to any subdivisions of the department)
• The Department of Justice
• The following agencies or subdivisions of the Department of Health and Human Services:
  • Office of the Secretary
  • Food and Drug Administration
  • Centers for Disease Control and Prevention
  • Administration for Strategic Preparedness and Response
  • Office of the General Counsel
  • Office of Refugee Resettlement, Administration for Children and Families
  • National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, National Institutes of Health
• The following agencies or subdivisions of the Department of Homeland Security:
  • Office of the Secretary
  • Office of the General Counsel
  • Office of Strategy, Policy, and Plans
  • Management Directorate
  • Science and Technology Directorate
  • Office of Health Security
  • Office of Homeland Security Situational Awareness
  • S. Citizenship and Immigration Services
  • United States Immigration and Customs Enforcement
  • United States Coast Guard
  • Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency
  • Federal Emergency Management Agency
• The following agencies or subdivisions of the Department of the Interior:
  • Office of the Secretary
  • Bureau of Land Management
  • Bureau of Safety and Environmental Enforcement
  • Bureau of Ocean Energy Management
• The Department of Energy (except for the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission)
• The following agencies or subdivisions of the Department of Agriculture:
  • Food Safety and Inspection Service
  • Animal and Plant Health Inspection Service
• The International Trade Administration at the Department of Commerce
• The Environmental Protection Agency
• The United States Agency for International Development
• The Nuclear Regulatory Commission
• The National Science Foundation
• The United States International Trade Commission
• The Federal Communications Commission
• The General Services Administration
• The following agencies or subdivisions of each of the 15 Executive department listed in 5 U.S.C 101, plus the Social Security Administration and Office of Personnel Management:
  • Office of the Chief Information Officer
  • any other agency or subdivision that has information resources management duties as the primary duty

The Federal Unions EO also makes clear that it does not apply to:

• The “immediate, local employing offices of any agency policy officers, security guards, or firefighters” so long as the exclusion does not apply to the Bureau of Prisons
• Subdivisions of the United States Marshals Service not already listed
• Any subdivisions of the Departments of Defense or Veterans Affairs as suspended by the Secretary

Finally, the Federal Unions EO includes a number of agency and subdivision exclusions under the Foreign Service Act of 1980 and delegates to the Secretary of Transportation authority to exclude any subdivision from FSLMRS coverage.

The practice of “official time” is when unionized federal employees perform union-related activities, rather than their actual public service duties, while being paid by taxpayers. The Federal Unions EO requires that agencies, upon termination of an applicable collective bargaining agreement, reassign any workers who performed “official time” to positions where they perform solely agency business. It also contains language regarding existing grievance proceedings and allows for the head of each agency to submit a report to the President within 30 days highlighting any agency subdivisions that were not covered but should have been covered under the Federal Unions EO.

According to Government Executive, the agencies listed in this executive order employ 67% of the federal workforce and this represents 75% of federal workers who are unionized.

The White House Fact Sheet can be found here.

Background:

Note: Much of this background is also available in I4AW’s report “Transparency Needed in the Process of Federal Collective Bargaining” available here.

It is squarely within the President’s authority to exclude certain Departments and agencies from federal collective bargaining with unions due to national security considerations.[4] The President’s Federal Unions EO follows this established legal precedent, ensuring that agencies crucial to protecting our national security remain unaffected by the federal collective bargaining process and can focus on their statutory missions.

Congress passed the Civil Service Reform Act in 1978, codifying a broad, merit-based employment framework for federal public sector personnel.[5] Title VII of the CSRA, the Federal Service Labor-Management Relations Statute (“FSLMRS”), codified the labor-management relations process by which non-postal federal employees have the right to organize and bargain collectively.[6] FSLMRS must be “interpreted in a manner consistent with the requirements of an effective and efficient government”[7] and the President may exclude any Department or agency from collective bargaining if its primary function is “intelligence, counterintelligence, investigative, or national security work.”[8]

Under the FSLMRS, federal employee unions have exclusive representation rights over bargaining units of employees; and employees in a bargaining unit are free to join or refrain from joining that union as members.[9] Whether or not a federal employee chooses to join the union, that person is still covered by the negotiated collective bargaining agreement and its benefits, processes, and liabilities.[10]

Much time, resources, and taxpayer dollars (likely hundreds of millions of taxpayer dollars) are spent annually on the federal collective bargaining process rather than on ensuring an effective and efficient government and protecting our national security.[11] For example, federal employees are not permitted to strike and their unions are limited in what conditions of employment they may bargain over.[12] Management rights and any matters “specifically provided for by Federal statute” are not bargainable—including  pay, health insurance, retirement, and certain workplace insurance (e.g., workers’ compensation, unemployment insurance), among others.[13] The National Treasury Employees Union—the second largest union in the federal government—agrees, stating that federal employee unions “have little to bargain over in the first place.”[14]

Given the constraints on negotiable issues, federal unions spend federal taxpayer dollars bargaining over “issues most taxpayers would consider a waste of time and attention,” wrote then Chairwoman Virginia Foxx (R-NC) of the U.S. House Committee on Education and Workforce.[15] The Chairwoman wrote examples of these bargained-for benefits include: “the addition of 14 inches in the height of cubicle desk panels (and “modesty panels” extending below the desk); designated smoking areas on an otherwise tobacco-free campus; and federal employees’ right to wear shorts, sweatpants, and spandex at work.”[16]

Cubicle desk panels and modesty panels were bargained-for at Treasury; smoking areas in a tobacco-free campus were bargained-for at the Department of Defense; and the right to wear spandex was bargained-for at the Department of the Air Force. At the Department of Veterans Affairs, a single facility allocated half of a hospital wing, amounting to more than 5,000 square feet including a kitchen, private bathrooms, outdoor patio, and conference room—largely benefiting the union’s president.[17]

Each of these agencies were declared to have a primary function of national security interests by the Federal Unions EO this week and may no longer participate in the federal collective bargaining process.[18]

The Federal Unions EO also ends the use of “official time” at these national security agencies. According to an Office of Personnel Management Report (“OPM Report”), in Fiscal Year 2019 non-Postal Service federal employees spent more than 2.6 million hours on official time and more than $163 million on expenses related to collective bargaining.

Below is a snapshot of some of the agencies that will now require all employees to perform agency business instead of union business based on Fiscal Year 2019 numbers:

Department / Agency[19]	Number of Bargaining Unit Employees  in FY 2019	Total Official Time Hours in FY 2019
The Department of State	20,400	8,190
The Department of Defense	492,668	526,990
The Department of the Treasury[20]	68,625	353,820
The Department of Veterans Affairs	324,105	502,082
The Department of Justice	32,154	228,545
The Department of Homeland Security[21]	118,323	220,372
The Department of Energy[22]	5,755	5,771.5
The Environmental Protection Agency	10,175	22,760.5
The Nuclear Regulatory Commission	1,937	3,969.75
The National Science Foundation	956	184.25
The United States International Trade Commission	300	133
The Federal Communications Commission	847	4,066
The General Services Administration	5,938	26,247.40

 

The President’s Federal Unions EO is a win for federal employees and a win for the American taxpayers. It ensures our national security agencies and federal workers will be able to fully focus on executing their missions and won’t be derailed by spending time and resources on non-agency business union work or debating whether to allow yoga pants in the workplace.

 Footnotes

[1] Exclusions from Federal Labor-Management Relations Programs, https://www.whitehouse.gov/presidential-actions/2025/03/exclusions-from-federal-labor-management-relations-programs/.

[2] 5 U.S.C. § 7103(b).

[3] Exec. Order. No. 12171, 44 Fed. Reg. 66565 (Nov. 19, 1979).

[4] Supra note 2.

[5] 5 U.S.C. §§ 1701 et. seq.

[6] 5 U.S.C. § 7101(b).

[7] Id.

[8] Supra note 2.

[9] 5 U.S.C. §§ 7111(a), 7102.

[10] 5 U.S.C. § 7114(a)(1).

[11] Institute for the American Worker, Transparency Needed in the Process of Federal Collective Bargaining (Jan. 2025), https://i4aw.org/reports/transparency-needed-in-the-process-of-federal-collective-bargaining/

[12] 5 U.S.C. §§ 7106, 7116(b)(7)(A).

[13] 5 U.S.C. § 7106.

[14] Miscellaneous and General Requirements, 87 Fed. Reg. 78015 (Dec. 21, 2022).

[15] Chairwoman Virginia Foxx, U.S. H. Comm. On Educ. and the Workforce, Letter to Lab. Acting Sec. Julie Su (Oct. 9, 2024),

https://edworkforce.house.gov/uploadedfiles/10.09.24_costs_of_official_time_and_bargaining_inquiry_dol.pdf; On Jan. 3, 2025 Rep. Tim Walberg (R-MI) became chair of the committee.

[16] Id.

[17] FLRA. (2020) Decision on Case No. 2020 FSIP 022, https://www.flra.gov/node/79009.

[18] Except that the Secretaries may suspend application to certain agencies, consistent with the Federal Unions EO.

[19] Off. of Pers. Mgmt., Taxpayer Funded Union Time Usage in the Federal Government Fiscal Year 2019 (2020), https://www.opm.gov/about-us/reports-publications/agency-reports/taxpayer-funded-union-time-fy-2019.pdf.

[20] This number represents the whole of the Department in 2019. The Federal Unions EO does not apply to the Bureau of Engraving and Printing

[21] This number represents the whole of the Department in 2019. The Federal Unions EO applies only to the following agencies: Office of the Secretary; Office of the General Counsel; Office of Strategy, Policy, and Plans; Management Directorate; Science and Technology Directorate; Office of Health Security; Office of Homeland Security Situational Awareness; U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services; United States Immigration and Customs Enforcement; United States Coast Guard; Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency; and Federal Emergency Management Agency.

[22] This number represents the whole of the Department in 2019. The Federal Unions EO does not apply to the the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission.