A federal appeals court on Thursday ruled in favor of President Trump’s ability to strip many federal employees of their collective bargaining rights, erasing a lower court injunction.
Major labor unions had challenged the executive order, saying it was an illegal attempt to retaliate against political opponents.
But the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals said Mr. Trump’s executive order did not show any such animus toward unions. And even if White House press materials did expose an antipathy to unions, Mr. Trump would likely have taken the action regardless of that animosity
“On this record, the government has shown not only that it could have, but also that it would have, issued EO 14,251 in the absence of the asserted retaliatory animus,” wrote Judge Daniel A. Bress, a Trump appointee.
He was joined in the unanimous ruling by Judge Bridget S. Bade, another Trump appointee, and Judge John B. Owens, an Obama pick to the appeals court.
The American Federation of Government Employees had led the lawsuit.
Mr. Trump’s executive order named a number of federal agencies he declared to be exempt from collective bargaining coverage.
The president cited national security reasons to end bargaining at more than 40 departments, agencies and divisions. In a fact sheet, the White House also complained about “hostile” federal employee unions.
U.S. District Judge James Donato, an Obama appointee in California, ruled in favor of the unions in June.
He held that the fact sheet did show hostility “to federal labor unions and their First Amendment activities” and that it suggested the union-busting was less about national security and more about retaliating against political opponents.
Plus, he said, the agencies covered were too broad.
“The government itself had a hard time saying why an agency like the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases might be properly regarded as having a primary mission of national security,” he wrote.
The appeals court, though, said it wouldn’t read into the president’s decision-making.
The court previously put Judge Donato’s injunction on hold. Thursday’s ruling vacates the injunction altogether.
Unions have raised similar challenges before other federal judges in Washington.
A district judge sided with the unions, but the circuit appeals court in Washington put that on hold last summer, finding the president had wide-ranging powers under the law to exclude agencies from collective bargaining.
