The Trump administration launched a multi-pronged assault on organized labor beginning in its first week, combining the destruction of the federal agency responsible for enforcing workers' rights with an executive order stripping collective bargaining from nearly a million federal employees — actions described by labor leaders as \"the single most aggressive action taken by the federal government against organized labor in US history.\"
\nOn January 27, 2025, President Trump fired NLRB member Gwynne Wilcox, a Democratic appointee in the middle of her five-year term — the first time in the board's 90-year history that a president has attempted to remove a member before the expiration of their term. He simultaneously fired General Counsel Jennifer Abruzzo.
\nWith Wilcox gone, the five-member board was left with only two members — below the three-member quorum required by a 2010 Supreme Court decision to issue any decisions. The board was effectively paralyzed: unable to hear unfair labor practice complaints, unable to certify election results, and unable to enforce workers' rights under the National Labor Relations Act.
\nOn March 6, 2025, US District Judge Beryl Howell found the firing \"illegal\" and ordered Wilcox reinstated. But the DC Circuit stayed her reinstatement on March 28, and on May 22, the Supreme Court ruled she could not return to work while her challenge proceeds — leaving the NLRB without a quorum indefinitely.
\nOn March 27, 2025, Trump signed Executive Order 14251, \"Exclusions from Federal Labor-Management Relations Programs.\" The order designated over a dozen federal agencies as performing \"intelligence, counterintelligence, investigative, or national security work\" — a classification that under the Federal Service Labor-Management Relations Statute exempts employees from collective bargaining protections.
\nThe agencies designated included the Department of Veterans Affairs, the State Department, the Department of Energy, and numerous others with no plausible intelligence or national security function. The designation stripped collective bargaining rights from approximately 950,000 federal employees.
\nOn August 28, 2025, Trump extended the order to NASA, NOAA, the National Weather Service, and the US Agency for Global Media — agencies with even less connection to intelligence work.
\nRight to organize and bargain collectively (ICESCR Article 8, ILO Conventions 87, 98, 151): The International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights guarantees the right to form and join trade unions. ILO Convention 87 protects the right to organize; Convention 98 protects collective bargaining; Convention 151 specifically protects public employees. The executive order's blanket revocation of bargaining rights for nearly a million workers violates these provisions.
\nFreedom of association (ICCPR Article 22): The ICCPR protects freedom of association, including the right to form and join trade unions. The union lawsuit argues the executive order constitutes unconstitutional retaliation for the unions' exercise of First Amendment rights, which would also constitute a violation of ICCPR Article 22.
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