Justice Department Attorneys Vote to Unionize on Cusp of Trump

Civil rights and environmental trial attorneys have voted to form the Justice Department’s first two known unions of litigators, the labor group they’ve chosen to represent them said.

The federal sector labor board counted votes following parallel secret ballot elections for employees of DOJ’s Civil Rights and Environment and Natural Resources divisions that concluded last week.

The results, which could still be contested by management, come a week before the start of a new Trump administration that’s threatened to erode rights of federal workers with a heightened focus on dismantling the DOJ bureaucracy.

Vote counts weren’t immediately provided by the Federal Labor Relations Authority.

“The employees who initiated this effort are dedicated public servants who want to help build a stable and supportive work environment,” National Treasury Employees Union President Doreen Greenwald said in a statement on Monday announcing the results.

“Together, these elections show that front line employees are eager to have a more meaningful voice in their workplace by standing together to bargain collectively and bring about changes that help the agency perform its vital public service missions,” Greenwald said.

The Justice Department and the Trump transition didn’t immediately respond to requests for comment. A spokesman for the FLRA, which Greenwald said informed the union of the results, also didn’t reply.

The path forward will be murky and potentially contentious. Trump-appointed leaders of DOJ will oversee managers at the bargaining table while negotiating initial contracts for both units. It’s not even clear if and when the FLRA will certify the results. A variety of factors can delay that process for months.

Union organizing with NTEU at both divisions was launched in part as a response to mandates last year from the Biden administration 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 employees.

Organizers have said that politics was never what drove the campaigns and that they’d wanted to unionize regardless of who won the presidency.

At both of the unionizing divisions, however, the enforcement missions to combat discrimination and pollution have previously been subject to major swings depending on which party controls the executive branch.

Trump has chosen Harmeet Dhillon, his staunch supporter and personal attorney, to lead the Civil Rights Division, alarming advocacy groups over her potential to overhaul their litigation profile by investigating diversity initiatives.