The Daily Fuckup

The Justice Department said Friday, March 28, 2025, that it filed a declaratory-judgment lawsuit in the Western District of Texas the night before on behalf of eight agencies against affiliates of the American Federation of Government Employees. The defendants are locals, councils and Division 10. The government says the case is about whether those agencies can lawfully terminate their collective bargaining agreements.

The filing followed a White House executive order issued Thursday, March 27, 2025, titled "Exclusions from Federal Labor-Management Relations Programs." The order says the listed agencies and subdivisions are determined to have as a primary function intelligence, counterintelligence, investigative or national-security work, and that the federal labor statute cannot be applied to them in a manner consistent with national-security requirements and considerations.

In its release, the Justice Department said the plaintiff agencies have contracts that prevent them from carrying out workforce policies they say would support their national-security missions. The department said the agencies want to end those agreements and went to court to confirm they are legally entitled to do so, while avoiding what it called unnecessary labor strife.

Attorney General Pamela Bondi said the department was taking the dispute directly to public-sector unions and was protecting the president's effort to keep unions from interfering with national-security functions. The Justice Department also said the lawsuit argues that senior executive-branch officials cannot be obstructed by collective bargaining agreements that micromanage oversight of the federal workforce or interfere with accountability.

The executive order names the State Department, the Defense Department, the Treasury Department, the Veterans Affairs Department, the Justice Department and several Health and Human Services and Homeland Security components. It also gives the Transportation Department authority to exclude subdivisions, including the Federal Aviation Administration, and says the order is not meant to create any enforceable right or benefit against the government.

The case now moves into federal court as the administration seeks a ruling that would let the agencies withdraw from or end the contracts. The order and the lawsuit together mark a sharp escalation in the fight over how much of the federal workforce can be pulled out of ordinary labor-management rules when the White House says national security is at stake.