Posts tagged Executive Order
How are unions pushing back against Trump’s attacks on labor and layoffs?
October 21, 2025 // Unions are battling the administration in federal courtrooms nationwide, after filing dozens of lawsuits to try to halt attempts to shed hundreds of thousands of government employees, strip collective bargaining rights from over a million workers, and gut some federal agencies. On Wednesday, they made a significant breakthrough: Judge Susan Illston, of the US district court’s northern district of California, granted a temporary restraining order blocking Trump’s latest mass layoffs from the government shutdown.
Why some federal workers aren’t scared by the threat of shutdown layoffs
October 7, 2025 // NPR has not learned of any layoffs due to the shutdown since congressional appropriations lapsed on Oct. 1, although many federal agencies have filed reorganization and reduction-in-force plans with the administration as a result of a February executive order and subsequent guidance directing them to do so.
Commentary: Trump gave the Labor Department more control over career-technical education. Will students benefit?
October 6, 2025 // In May, Trump officials signed an interagency agreement that maintains the Education Department’s oversight authority for career-technical education, but hands over the day-to-day operations to the Labor Department. That includes distributing over $1 billion to states in Perkins funding, which pays for CTE programs in K-12 schools and community colleges, making compliance monitoring visits, and helping states and schools with technical questions. High-ranking Democrats in Congress have said this transfer of funds and responsibilities is illegal, and the proposal should have gone to Congress. Others in the career and technical education field say the Education and Labor Departments already work closely together and this move isn’t necessary to improve collaboration.
Trump administration moving to end federal prison workers’ union protections
October 1, 2025 // Federal Bureau of Prisons (BOP) Director William K. Marshall III wrote a letter to nearly 35,000 employees outlining plans to dismantle their contract negotiated by the Council of Prison Locals (CPL) labor union. “The current contract has too often slowed or prevented changes that would have made your jobs safer and your workdays better,” Marshall said in the memo to workers. “This is not about questioning the value of representation; it’s about ensuring representation moves us forward, not holds us back.”
A Senate bill seeks to restore collective bargaining for a huge swath of federal workers
September 22, 2025 // Warner was quick to point out what union representation for federal workers does not do. “Let’s be clear, a federal union doesn’t have the ability to strike, or negotiate pay or benefits,” Warner said. But, he said, union representation for federal workers is designed to prevent discrimination and unlawful firings, as well as offer protections for whistleblowers.
No LIRR strike for at least 4 months as Trump steps in on labor dispute
September 17, 2025 // The emergency board will probe the contract fight and prevent and mediate negotiations under the Railway Labor Act, which triggers a 120-day “cooling off period.” That means neither the MTA nor the unions can change wages, hours or working conditions — and workers cannot legally strike — for roughly four months unless both sides agree to a deal.
Op-ed: Can Zohran Make NYC a Union Town Again?
September 9, 2025 // The new mayor could host big online unionization trainings with the Emergency Workplace Organizing Committee, as Bernie Sanders and Alexandria Ocasio Cortez have already done. If this led even a small fraction of Zohran’s 60,000-plus volunteers and over 6 million social media followers to start organizing their own workplaces—or to take a strategic job to unionize it—this could potentially generate thousands of new unionization campaigns. And were Mamdani to act upon our proposal to launch a broad Movement for an Affordable New York (MANY), then the pool of new potential workplace organizers would grow significantly.
Louisville union members urge lawmakers to protect bargaining rights
September 8, 2025 // John Hetzel is the president of the Louisville chapter of the American Federation of Government Employees. He said federal and veterans’ rights need to return to employees. “Specifically, that is stripping people of their bargaining rights and their contracts. We just had that happen to us at the VA, and it affected 300,000 employees, and it’s devastating,” Hetzel said. Hetzel’s union and other allies are calling for support on HR 2550. That would overturn the president’s executive order that removes collective bargaining rights for workers at more than 30 federal agencies.
Trump Ends Union Protections for NASA Employees, Citing ‘National Security’
September 4, 2025 // Although NASA is defined as “America’s civil space program,” the new order argues that the agency’s activities fall under national security. “NASA develops and operates advanced air and space technologies, like satellite, communications, and propulsion systems, that are critical for U.S. national security,” the executive order reads. The order affects the approximately 53% of NASA employees in a bargaining unit represented by two labor unions, the International Federation of Professional and Technical Engineers and the American Federation of Government Employees, according to the agency.
A fresh executive order aims to ban unions at more federal agencies
September 3, 2025 // The targeting of additional agencies and their respective unions comes as the Trump administration has begun formally terminating collective bargaining agreements at more than half a dozen agencies, despite assuring federal judges that such a step wouldn’t be taken until the conclusion of litigation surrounding the executive order. The Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals this week signaled that it will consider reversing a prior decision to allow the edict to go into effect.