A federal judge Friday afternoon temporarily blocked the Trump administration from invalidating union contracts for hundreds of thousands of federal employees, the latest in a string of legal setbacks for the president this week.
U.S. District Judge Paul L. Friedman of the District of Columbia said President Donald Trump’s March directive stripping federal workers at dozens of agencies of their union rights was unlawful, in an order granting a temporary injunction.
“An opinion explaining the Court’s reasoning will be issued within the next few days,” Friedman, an appointee of President Bill Clinton, wrote.
Trump’s executive order from late March canceled union rights at more than two dozen federal agencies and offices, in a major expansion of the administration’s efforts to shrink the federal government. The White House cited national security concerns for terminating workers’ ability to bargain collectively, but the order applied to federal agencies with both direct and indirect links to national security.
