NTEU is continuing its fight against President Trump’s unlawful Executive Orders on multiple fronts. The union is fighting agency efforts to impose the harmful terms of the Orders in new contracts, such as caps on official time and limits on grievance rights, and we are filing administrative challenges when those agencies persist.     

In addition to our efforts at the bargaining table and our grievance procedures, we are supporting a new litigation effort brought by the National Association of Agriculture Employees. The federal appellate court in Washington, D.C. ruled against us. That court did not reach the issue of whether the Executive Orders are legal or not but held as a procedural matter that NTEU must first bring any challenge to those orders to the Federal Labor Relations Authority, instead of in court. That decision binds courts within the D.C. Circuit but does not bind courts in other circuits around the country. A fellow union has filed a new Executive Orders lawsuit in Maryland. NTEU is supporting that suit because this issue is so important to us and all federal sector unions. In NTEU’s view, any challenge to the president’s attempt to eviscerate the collective bargaining regime established by Congress belongs in court, and not before the FLRA. And on the merits, it is clear that these Executive Orders illegally exceed presidential authority and conflict with civil service law.