Two More Unions to Push District Court to Block Trump CBA Order

Unions for employees at two federal agencies are the next to attempt to convince a district judge to temporarily block President Donald Trump‘s cancellation of their collective bargaining agreements, despite previous union wins being quickly unwound on appeal.

The Patent Office Professional Association and National Weather Service Employees Organization will make their case Wednesday to join at least three unions that have won temporary relief from Trump’s executive orders.

Judge Paul L. Friedman of the US District Court for the District of Columbia temporarily blocked the cancellation of CBAs for employees at the publicly funded international broadcaster Voice of America, the National Treasury Employees Union, the American Foreign Services Association, and the AFL-CIO.

But the DC Circuit halted the injunctions in the NTEU and AFSA suits, while appeals in the others are pending. The government urged Friedman to reject the latest injunction request and follow the appellate court’s reasoning that other union plaintiffs’ claims were unlikely to succeed.

“It is still fact specific and based on what evidence each side can provide, but it is persuasive authority,” Michael Fallings, partner at Tully Rinckey PLLC, said of the appellate rulings.

Unions’ Arguments

POPA and NWSEO sued the government over an August executive order nullifying their labor protections. The order, which expanded a March directive targeting other unions, was within the president’s authority under a carve-out in the Federal Service Labor Management Relations Statute because the “primary function” of the work at those agencies was related to national security, the administration argued.

That categorization is wrong and the statute doesn’t grant the president that authority, the unions said in their motion for a preliminary injunction. Only about two dozen patent examiners out of roughly 9,000 represented by POPA screen patent applications for potential national security concerns, they said. The PTO doesn’t assess the national security harms, but refers the applications to defense agencies—and only about 50 of the 600,000 applications received each year are ultimately subjected to a secrecy order.

The executive order was actually retaliation for actions challenging administration policies such as the termination of telework, they said.

The NWS and PTO are making significant changes to their employees’ workflows without giving them an opportunity to negotiate, which creates irreparable harm absent an injunction, they argued.

“Collective bargaining derives its value in real time, enabling employees to address their employment conditions through their collective bargaining representative when it matters the most,” they said. “If a union is unable to bargain on behalf of its members and represented employees as changes unfold, then the employees’ interest in and support for collective bargaining will weaken.”

If Friedman grants the injunction, POPA and NWSEO will resume processing grievances, said Richard Hirn, the unions’ counsel.

“I don’t want to prejudge what he might do out of respect to the court, but my clients are certainly hopeful that they too will be given a preliminary injunction reinstating their collective bargaining rights,” Hirn said.

Administration Response

Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick, acting administrator of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration Laura Grimm, and then-acting director of the PTO Coke Morgan Stewart are defendants in the suit alongside Trump. The government acknowledged the district court has “rejected many of the arguments below in other lawsuits designated as related to this case” but argued the facts are distinguishable.

The unions’ retaliation theory is “flawed and logically inconsistent” because they filed grievances before the March executive order but were excluded from it, the government said in its opposition filing.

But unions could flip that back on the administration, Fallings said.

“Another argument could be, ‘Why didn’t you include us in the March order? What’s the justification of including us now?’” he said.

The administration defended the national security designation. Nearly 20% of patent applications are flagged for further screening even though a much smaller number are subject to a secrecy order, according to a declaration from PTO executive Valencia Martin-Wallace. NWS employees provide satellite and weather data relevant to military unit and intelligence operations, the government said.

The administration argued the Federal Labor Relations Authority is the proper venue for this dispute.

Hirn called that argument “nonsense,” citing Friedman’s prior rulings.

“If you’re not covered by the statute, the FLRA is not even going to consider your case,” he said. “They’re just going to dismiss it, as the FLRA has in previous situations, in previous years when agencies and unions have been excluded from the coverage of the statute.”

The government, however, argued that if the FLRA dismissed a challenge to the executive order for a lack of jurisdiction, that would create an appealable “final order.”

The Justice Department attorney representing the government didn’t return a request for comment. The PTO declined to comment.

The case is National Weather Service Employees Organization v. Trump, D.D.C., No. 1:25-cv-02947, oral arguments scheduled 12/10/25.