A federal judge in California blocked President Donald Trump‘s executive order aimed at ending collective bargaining for federal workers across various federal agencies.
Judge James Donato of the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of California, an Obama appointee, issued a preliminary injunction on Tuesday blocking Trump’s order stripping collective bargaining rights from 21 agencies, which the president said he could do under the Civil Service Reform Act of 1978, citing national security concerns.
Donato sided with the American Federation of Government Employees, the AFL-CIO, and other unions who said the order was unlawful retaliation and violated their First Amendment speech rights.
“Plaintiffs have demonstrated a serious question under the First Amendment that warrants preserving the status quo pending further litigation. The court need not take up plaintiffs’ other claims as a potential ground for an injunction,” Donato said.
Donato pointed to a fact sheet released by the White House, which said Trump would “not tolerate mass obstruction that jeopardizes his ability to manage agencies with vital national security missions,” as part of his concerns about First Amendment violations.
The judge said the fact sheet “expressed a clear point of view that is hostile to federal labor unions and their First Amendment activities.”
Donato said he would set an expedited trial for the case. The Trump administration could appeal the Tuesday decision to the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 9th Circuit.
The judge’s ruling comes after another legal challenge in federal court in Washington, D.C., in which a district judge blocked the order as applied to seven different federal agencies in April. The district judge’s order was later paused by the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit the following month.
The split 2-1 panel in the D.C. Circuit ruled the alleged harms caused by Trump’s executive order taking effect were “speculative” and allowed the executive order to be reinstated in the interim.
Trump’s executive order on collective bargaining is the latest to face a legal battle, with other orders and actions on immigration and downsizing the federal government also facing delays amid lawsuits.
The Supreme Court has dealt with several emergency requests by the Trump administration as federal courts have blocked executive actions. The high court is currently weighing whether to pause orders blocking Trump from reducing the federal workforce across different federal agencies.