Trump, Patent Office Chief Face Second Union Lawsuit Over CBA

The National Treasury Employees Union sued President Donald Trump to challenge the legality of his executive order canceling union contracts for some federal employees, joining two other labor organizations in filing complaints alleging the order was unconstitutional.

NTEU’s lawsuit focused on the impact of Trump’s Aug. 28 executive order on employees at the US Patent and Trademark Office, according to its Wednesday complaint filed in the US District Court for the District of Columbia. The suit also names Office of Personnel Management Director Scott Kupor and PTO Acting Director Coke Morgan Stewart as defendants.

It’s the latest lawsuit the organization has filed this year to push back against the new administration’s labor policies. NTEU represents nearly 160,000 federal employees across three dozen departments and agencies, according to its complaint.

Trump’s order last week said PTO employees in the patents unit and information office can’t organize because their “primary function” includes national security, intelligence, counterintelligence or investigative work. It expands on a March order axing collective bargaining agreements for 40 agencies and sub-agencies.

“The one function on which the President bases his exemption is misstated,” NTEU wrote. “And it would not be a ‘primary’ function of the Patents Office, in any event.”

“The Further Exclusions Order reduces the number of employees that NTEU represents at the Patents Office,” it added. “This will severely diminish NTEU’s influence at the bargaining table and in the workplace at the Patents Office.”

The White House, OPM, and USPTO didn’t immediately return requests for comment.

NTEU didn’t immediately respond to a request for comment on the lawsuit and the number of employees it represents in the PTO’s patents unit and information office.

Two other unions affected by last week’s executive order—the Patent Office Professional Association, representing patent examiners, and the National Weather Service Employees Organization—similarly filed a lawsuit Tuesday calling the President’s move unconstitutional. Stewart is also named as a defendant in that action.

NTEU echoed POPA and NWSEO’s argument that the patent office “does not plausibly meet the requirements” that exempt it from the Federal Service Labor-Management Relations Statute, which gives public employees the right to organize unless their agency primarily focuses on national security-sensitive work. NTEU said the exemption was “retaliatory” and Trump’s action breached its First Amendment rights.

NTEU has represented PTO employees since 1985, according to its complaint.

NTEU is represented by its in-house counsel.

The case is National Treasury Employees Union v. Trump, D.D.C., No. 1:25-cv-02990, complaint filed 9/3/25.