Justice Department Lawyers to Vote on Union on Eve of Trump (1)

Environmental and civil rights attorneys will vote on whether to form the Justice Department’s first known union of litigators in the final weeks before a second Trump administration that’s threatened to erode their job protections.

Lawyers with DOJ’s Civil Rights and Environment and Natural Resources divisions—handling some of the department’s more politically divisive cases—will both start casting ballots Dec. 12, said a spokeswoman for the National Treasury Employees Union. The civil rights voting period ends Jan. 8 and the ENRD period closes Jan. 9, she added.

The federal sector labor board could certify results before Trump takes office Jan. 20, but the timeline varies and may take months, depending on potential challenges filed over the results and other factors.

The process comes amid widespread concerns from current and former DOJ employees that President-elect Donald Trump will dismantle the federal bureaucracy, with a particular focus on a Justice Department workforce he didn’t trust in his prior term.

The union organizing with NTEU at both divisions launched in part as a response to mandates last year from the Biden administration’s DOJ to cut back on remote work flexibility. Trump’s pledge as a candidate to revive his 2020 “Schedule F” executive order to fire “rogue bureaucrats” also mobilized the employees.

“The Civil Rights Division and the Environment and Natural Resources Division remain fully committed to the right of our employees to organize consistent with federal law,” a DOJ spokesperson said in a statement.

Trump transition media representatives didn’t immediately respond to a request for comment.

The representation elections administered by the Federal Labor Relations Authority follow negotiations with DOJ management in recent weeks over the size and appropriateness of the proposed collective bargaining units.

The Civil Rights Division had initially contested the organizing rights of its criminal attorneys, arguing they should be ineligible due to a law forbidding federal workers from collective bargaining if they work on matters affecting national security.

The FLRA had scheduled hearings to resolve disagreements over the appropriateness of the units, but the union reached agreements with management at both divisions on the terms of the election before the hearings took place, said FLRA spokesman Eric Prag.