JUST IN: Trump ends collective bargaining for federal administrative workers

In a fact sheet on the order, the Trump White House said that the president "signed an Executive Order using authority granted by the Civil Service Reform Act of 1978 (CSRA) to end collective bargaining with Federal unions" that include the Department of Defense, Department of Veterans Affairs (VA), the National Science Foundation (NSF), and Coast Guard in the federal government's portfolio of National Defense agencies.

With the portfolio of border security agencies, Trump ended collective bargaining with the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) leadership components, US Citizenship and Immigration Services, US Immigration and Customs Enforcement, the Department of Justice’s (DOJ) Executive Office of Immigration Review, and the Office of Refugee Resettlement within the Department of Health and Human Services.

The White House said that the Service Reform Act of 1978 had allowed for "hostile Federal unions to obstruct agency management," adding, "This is dangerous in agencies with national security responsibilities."

There were a number of other agencies that had ability to do collective bargaining removed and around 75 percent of federal workers would not be able to do so, per Politico. Trump used the authority that is granted in the Service Reform Act of 1978 to amend an executive order in 1979 that established the ability to unionize for the federal workers.

Like other executive orders that the president has signed regarding federal employees, there may be legal pushback against the order. A number of lawsuits have been filed against the Trump administration and have sought to stop actions from the Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) along with Elon Musk to identify agency staffers to cut from the federal workforce.

American Federation of Government Employees President Everett Kelley said that the union is "preparing immediate legal action."