In the latest effort to put his stamp on the federal work force, President Trump on Friday issued a memorandum invalidating government labor contracts finalized in the last 30 days before a presidential inauguration.
The policy applies to certain contracts negotiated toward the end of the Biden administration, the memo says.
Such “last-minute, lame-duck” agreements, it states, “are purposefully designed to circumvent the will of the people” and “inhibit the President’s authority to manage the executive branch.”
Unions at several agencies rushed to negotiate collective bargaining agreements ahead of Mr. Trump’s inauguration to preserve some practices of the previous administration, like remote work, and insulate them from changes that could make it easier to fire civil servants.
The memo appears to allude to such practices, which it calls “inefficient and ineffective,” and cites an agreement with the Education Department that attempts to preserve remote work arrangements. The memo says the agreements could be undone if they have not yet been approved by an “applicable” agency head.
Other agencies, like the Social Security Administration, approved new collective bargaining agreements outside the 30-day window, presumably leaving them unaffected by the memo.
It was unclear if the memo would survive legal pushback initiated by federal employee unions, though it appeared to anticipate legal challenges, noting that it should remain in force if a portion alluding to prohibited bargaining agreements from the Biden administration is found to be invalid.
“Federal employees should know that approved union contracts are enforceable by law, and the president does not have the authority to make unilateral changes to those agreements,” Everett Kelley, the president of the American Federation of Government Employees, said in a statement. “Members will not be intimidated. If our contracts are violated, we will aggressively defend them.”