NewsA judge for the US District Court for the District of Columbia [official website], ruled [opinion, PDF] Saturday that portions of President Donald Trump’s May 25 executive orders making it easier to fire federal employees overstepped his authority as president.
The first [order] amended collective bargaining procedures in federal employment. The second [order] limited the amount of time federal employees can engage in union activities at work. The third [order] allowed federal employees to be removed for inadequate performance without a warning.
Judge Ketanji Brown Jackson wrote that while the president has the authority to issue orders relating to federal labor, the orders cannot conflict with the will of Congress. Portions of all three orders, Jackson wrote, conflict with the Federal Service Labor-Management Relations Statute [text]:
Many of the challenged provisions of the Orders at issue here effectively reduce the scope of the right to bargain collectively as Congress has crafted it, or impair the ability of agency officials to bargain in good faith as Congress has directed, and therefore cannot be sustained.
While Jackson overturned the portions of all three orders dealing with collective bargaining, she upheld the remaining portions of the orders.
