DC Judge Blocks Trump’s Cancellation of CBA at Voice of America

A federal judge blocked the Trump administration’s canceling of collective bargaining rights for workers at the US Agency for Global Media, in a blow to efforts to invalidate union rights for large swaths of the federal workforce.

Judge Paul Friedman of the US District Court for the District of Columbia found that the cancellation of collective bargaining agreements at the agency, which houses the publicly funded international broadcaster Voice of America, was unlawful retaliation against the American Federation of Government Employees and the American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees, the unions said.

Friedman’s preliminary injunction adds to the growing list of litigation around President Donald Trump’s efforts to nullify collective bargaining agreements for over a million federal workers and widen a loophole which exempts national security roles from statutory labor protections.

The Agency for Global Media was included in an executive order in August, which also hit the US Patent and Trademark Office and the National Weather Service, prompting the unions to sue.

According to the unions’ complaint, the White House claimed that USAGM was an arm of the nation’s diplomatic service and therefore “supporting US national security is one of its key functions.”

“This is a major victory for workers at VOA and USAGM against the administration’s efforts to silence their voices in an attempt to punish them,” said AFSCME President Lee Saunders in a statement. “The professionals at these agencies have been beacons of hope against the world’s most oppressive regimes. We’ll continue to fight for the collective bargaining rights of our members against an administration determined to strip them away.”

The case is AFSCME v. Trump, D.D.C., No. 1:25-cv-03306, 11/14/25.