Exclusions From Federal Labor-Management Relations Programs
The order removes collective bargaining rights from employees across dozens of federal agencies — including the Departments of State, Defense, Justice, Veterans Affairs, Energy, and Homeland Security — by declaring their work primarily serves national security purposes, making them ineligible under the Federal Service Labor-Management Relations Statute.
It represents the largest single expansion of national security exclusions from federal union rights in decades, reaching well beyond the intelligence agencies traditionally excluded and covering units as varied as the FDA, FEMA, and the EPA.
What this order does
What it orders
The order amends Executive Order 12171 of 1979 to add an extensive list of agencies and subdivisions to the national security exclusion from the Federal Service Labor-Management Relations Statute, stripping their employees of collective bargaining rights. Excluded entities include entire cabinet departments (State, Defense, Veterans Affairs, Justice, Energy) and specific offices within HHS, DHS, Interior, Agriculture, and Commerce, as well as independent bodies such as the EPA, Nuclear Regulatory Commission, and National Science Foundation. It also excludes subdivisions of the State Department and USAID that employ Foreign Service officers from the parallel Foreign Service labor statute.
The order delegates authority to the Secretaries of Defense and Veterans Affairs to voluntarily restore coverage to specific subdivisions — but only by certifying within 15 days that doing so is consistent with national security. The Secretary of Transportation receives authority to exclude any DOT subdivision, including the FAA. Agency heads must terminate union grievance and arbitration proceedings and reassign employees doing union business to agency duties when existing collective bargaining agreements expire. All agency heads with any Chapter 71 employees must report within 30 days on additional subdivisions that may qualify for exclusion.
Who it affects
Federal employees currently in bargaining units at the agencies and subdivisions listed — potentially hundreds of thousands of workers across State, Defense, Veterans Affairs, Justice, DHS, HHS, Energy, EPA, and many others — who would lose the right to collectively bargain through their unions once existing contracts expire.
Why it matters
When existing collective bargaining agreements expire, affected employees lose the right to negotiate wages, working conditions, and grievance procedures through a union. Unions representing those workers lose legal standing in pending arbitration and unfair-labor-practice cases involving excluded employees, eliminating their main enforcement mechanism.
What must happen and when
How the order is supposed to work
The exclusions take legal effect immediately upon signing, but operational impact on current employees kicks in only when their collective bargaining agreements expire — at which point agency heads must reassign employees doing union business and withdraw from pending grievance, arbitration, and unfair-labor-practice proceedings. The Secretaries of Defense and Veterans Affairs have a narrow 15-day window to restore coverage to specific subdivisions by submitting a national-security certification to the Federal Register. A 30-day reporting requirement runs in parallel, potentially setting up a second wave of exclusions. The Secretary of Transportation's new exclusion authority is non-delegable and must be published in the Federal Register when exercised.
Actions and deadlines
- Secretaries of Defense and Veterans Affairs submit national-security certification to the Federal Register to restore coverage to any subdivisions
- Each agency head with Chapter 71 employees submits report to the President identifying subdivisions qualifying for national security exclusion
- Agency heads reassign employees from union business to agency duties and withdraw from pending grievance and arbitration proceedings
- Secretary of Transportation publish any exclusion or suspension determinations for DOT subdivisions in the Federal Register
Agencies directed to act
Authority and reach
What this order changes
Amends Executive Order 12171