When rights are snatched away...

As the Trump administration seeks to shrink the federal workforce, slash nonmilitary spending and curb opposition to its policies, it is taking steps beyond the firing and furloughing of thousands of government workers.

- Bob Bussel

The government is also trying to strip hundreds of thousands of federal employees of their right to bargain collectively and have a voice in their conditions of employment.

Citing "national security" concerns, President Donald Trump issued an executive order on March 27, 2025, that cancelled collective bargaining agreements at more than 30 federal agencies, commissions and programmes, including the Department of Veterans Affairs, the Environmental Protection Agency, the National Science Foundation and the Food and Drug Administration. A judge temporarily blocked the order's enforcement on April 25.

Over three decades of researching American unions, I've never witnessed such a sweeping assault on collective bargaining rights, which give workers represented by unions the ability to negotiate with employers about the terms of their employment.

But advocates of strong labour rights should have known what might be in store given the labor policies recommended by the Heritage Foundation's Project 2025. That document, which Trump disavowed on the campaign trail in 2024 but has embraced in practice during his second term, questions whether public-sector unions should exist at all.