President Donald Trump eliminated legal rights to collective bargaining from hundreds of thousands of federal workers in a late Thursday night edict, marking the greatest setback for unionized federal workers so far in his second term.
The White House says the executive order comes as “certain federal unions have declared war on President Trump’s agenda,” singling out labor organizations’ legal fights against the Department of Government Efficiency’s potentially illegal mass firings. It relies on a “national security” exemption in the 1978 Civil Service Reform Act, a law meant to protect workers’ rights to organize.
