First things first: President Donald Trump’s executive order on collective bargaining does not “strip unionization rights from most federal workers,” as some media outlets have wrongly stated. Not a single federal employee has lost his or her right to belong to a union.
What the order does do is end the practice of collective bargaining with federal employee unions in certain agencies and offices “with national security missions.”
The Civil Service Reform Act of 1978 specifies that the president may exclude any agency or subdivision from collective bargaining rights if “the president determines that … the agency or subdivision has as a primary function intelligence, counterintelligence, investigative, or national security work.”
The executive order deems national security to include national defense; border security; foreign relations; energy security;…
