The Daily Fuckup

The Justice Department said Friday, March 28, 2025, that it filed a lawsuit the night before in the Western District of Texas on behalf of eight federal agencies against affiliates of the American Federation of Government Employees. The case seeks a declaratory judgment on whether those agencies may end collective bargaining agreements they say interfere with national-security work.

The filing came a day after the president issued an executive order titled Exclusions from Federal Labor-Management Relations Programs. DOJ said the order reflects the president’s determination that several agencies and subdivisions perform investigative and national-security work and therefore should not be required to bargain in ways that conflict with those missions.

According to the department, the plaintiffs are seeking to terminate collective bargaining agreements with AFGE locals, councils and Division 10, which the government says block the agencies from carrying out workforce policies tied to their national-security responsibilities. The lawsuit says the agencies are asking for legal certainty before moving ahead.

Attorney General Pamela Bondi said the department is “taking this fight directly to the public-sector unions” and said the Texas filing is aimed at protecting the president’s effort to ensure unions do not interfere with national-security functions. The complaint also argues that the president and senior executive-branch officials cannot carry out intelligence, counterintelligence and investigative missions if bargaining agreements limit oversight and accountability.

The case is a test of the executive order’s reach as applied to these agencies and contracts. It does not itself resolve the broader legality of federal labor policy, but it does put the administration’s national-security argument before a court in a concrete dispute over existing agreements.