Trump-appointed judge tosses White House lawsuit against labor unions

Source: Politico

07/23/2025 09:44 PM EDT


A Trump-appointed judge on Wednesday dealt a blow to the White House’s bid to kick out labor unions from an array of federal agencies. Judge Alan Albright of the Western District of Texas said that the Trump administration lacks the legal standing necessary to pursue the case it filed against the American Federation of Government Employees, the largest labor union representing federal workers.

The lawsuit was a preemptive strike against AFGE and other public-sector unions, seeking to nullify collective bargaining agreements that interfered with White House goals. It was submitted shortly after President Donald Trump signed an executive order in March stripping hundreds of thousands of government workers of unionization rights by vastly expanding the use of a national security exemption in federal labor law to cover agencies like the Environmental Protection Agency and Agriculture Department.

In the complaint, eight of the agencies claimed that the Biden administration entered into “midnight” deals with labor unions aimed at hamstringing its successor. They asked the court for an affirmative blessing in order to invalidate the collective bargaining agreements — a request that Albright said was something the court “should not and could not do.”

“This Court is unable to identify a single instance in which a federal court has exercised jurisdiction over agencies seeking a pre-enforcement declaratory judgment approving their desired future course of conduct,” Albright wrote in a 27-page ruling Wednesday.

Read more: https://www.politico.com/news/2025/07/23/trump-judge-tosses-white-house-lawsuit-labor-unions-00473399