Court halts judge's ruling on Trump's order restricting unions

In a recent development, Judge J. Michelle Childs, a judge appointed by President Biden to the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit, has dissented against a stay issued by two of her colleagues in the NTEU case. The stay allows the White House to resume its union-busting campaign while the legal challenge plays out.

The stay was granted to the Trump administration's efforts to strip federal workers' collective bargaining rights, which had been blocked by a preliminary injunction in April. This decision was based on Office of Personnel Management guidance instructing agencies not to terminate collective bargaining agreements until the conclusion of management lawsuits.

Judge Childs argues that the government's claim of irreparable harm due to a stay is an attempt to bypass the government's own irreparable harm barrier. She suggests that the government may be using the claim of irreparable harm as a pretext to bypass the need for a preliminary injunction.

The court's majority found that the union, the National Treasury Employees Union (NTEU), had failed to prove that they had suffered irreparable harm necessary for a preliminary injunction. However, Judge Childs questions how the government can show its own injury from a district court injunction that is enjoining an already-paused executive order.

Childs' dissent does not provide new information about the legal challenge or the merits of the case. It does not explicitly state that she is requesting a stay of the injunction, but rather questions the reasoning behind the majority's decision to grant a stay.

The NTEU has been bargaining on behalf of federal workers since the 1970s, and a short-term continuation of this practice while the appeal is adjudicated should not cause irreparable harm, according to Judge Childs. She also points out an inconsistency in the claims made by her colleagues and the White House, stating that an injunction blocking the order's implementation constitutes "irreparable harm," while the implementation guidance advises agencies to wait.

In a separate case, U.S. District Judge Paul Friedman found that President Trump's March executive order served as a "pretext" for retaliation against labor unions. Federal agencies have ceased abiding by collective bargaining agreements in practice, including by abandoning participation in arbitrated grievance hearings, ceasing collective bargaining negotiations, and surreptitiously ceasing the collection of union dues from employees' paychecks.

The two Republican-appointed judges on the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit issued the stay, arguing that the injunction amounts to an "irreparable harm on the president by impeding his national-security prerogatives." The judge appointed by President Biden to the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit who dissented against the stay issued by the other judges in the NTEU case is not explicitly named in the available search results.