Appeals Court Says Trump Can Prevent Some Federal Employees From Unionizing

President Donald Trump can exclude some federal employees from unionizing, a federal appeals court ruled on June 17.

The president is authorized in federal law to exclude agencies from collective bargaining for national security considerations, a unanimous panel of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit said.

The law states that the president can exclude an agency or subdivision if it is primarily involved in intelligence, counterintelligence, investigative, or national security work, and that the union protections “cannot be applied to that agency or subdivision in a manner consistent with national security requirements and considerations.”

Trump in March 2025 signed an executive order excluding multiple agencies, including the Department of Justice, and certain subdivisions from unionizing. He cited the law in the order.

The American Federation of Labor and Congress of Industrial Organizations sued, alleging the order was promulgated to punish them for constitutionally-protected speech, and a federal judge ruled that the unions were likely to succeed in part because evidence indicated the administration was hostile to unions and the order had a “chilling effect” on their right to free speech.

The Ninth Circuit later in 2025 paused the preliminary injunction, stating that the president would have taken the same action regardless of rhetoric from a White House fact sheet on the order.

U.S. Circuit Judge Daniel Bress said in the new decision, which vacated the injunction, that the unions have not shown they are likely to succeed because Trump’s order did not contain any retaliatory animus.

Even if the fact sheet did express animus, it also outlines that the reason for the order was a national security focus, the judge said.

“In short, because [the order] has ‘a legitimate grounding in national security concerns, quite apart from any’ retaliatory animus, the government on the existing record has shown that the President would have taken the same actions in the absence of the asserted retaliatory intent,” Bress said.

The White House and the American Federation of Labor and Congress of Industrial Organizations did not respond to requests for comment by the time of publication.

The ruling is not the final decision in the case, Circuit Judge John Owens noted in a concurring opinion. He said that the court was limited to reviewing the law as applied by the district court and the record as it now stands.

A decision on the merits of the case may include considering a more developed factual record, Owens said.