A coalition of union-label Democrat politicians and Big Labor-appeasing Republicans on Capitol Hill are continuing this spring to try to overturn what is arguably the single most important facet of the second Trump Administration’s efforts to drain the D.C. “swamp.”
Thanks to two 2025 Trump executive orders, and presidential appointees’ implementation of them, more than a million federal workers who were previously subject to union-boss control over key terms and conditions of their employment are, for the time being, union-free.
But last December 11, every Democrat House member who was present, along with a small minority of GOP House members, voted to adopt H.R.2550, a scheme that would overturn the Trump orders and reinstate Big Labor bosses’ power to dictate how these million-plus civil servants are managed and disciplined.
National Right to Work Committee Vice President Greg Mourad commented: “While the 1978 Civil Service Reform Act [CSRA] wrongly authorizes union monopoly bargaining in federal workplaces, it has always provided a broad exception for the President to circumvent the special privileges of government union bosses in the interest of national security.
“The Committee is opposing all Capitol Hill efforts to strip the President of his prerogative to prevent federal union monopoly bargaining from undermining his capacity to carry out his duties as our nation’s chief executive.”
The sharp rollback of Big Labor coercive control over civil servants last year coincided with a net decline of roughly 231,000, or 10.3%, in the number of civilian employees on federal payrolls from December 2024 to December 2025, according to a Pew Research Center analysis of Office of Personnel Management data.
That represents an annual savings to taxpayers of an estimated $37 billion.
Meanwhile, according to key metrics, union-free teams of civil servants are providing better services with fewer people on the payroll.
For example, the Department of Veterans Affairs announced in a February 23 news release that the “backlog of VA disability compensation and benefit claims” is now, for the first time in six years, consistently under 100,000.
The VA further reported that the backlog of veterans “waiting for VA benefits” had fallen by 63% since Donald Trump’s January 2025 return to the White House, after increasing 24% during the tenure of government union boss-allied President Joe Biden.
From the time they were issued, President Trump’s executive orders invoking his power under the CSRA to suspend Big Labor control over civil service employees have been challenged in court again and again by government union bosses.
Both in 2025 and this year, federal appellate courts have rejected attempts by Big Labor lawyers to secure court orders forcing Mr. Trump and his appointees to reinstitute union monopoly bargaining. But the litigation hasn’t stopped.
This March 13, a union boss-“friendly” district judge ruled in favor of American Federation of Government Employees union President Everett Kelley, ordering the VA to reinstate AFGE bosses’ monopoly privileges at facilities that are located across the country and employ a total of 320,000 front-line workers.
“Everett Kelley and other federal union bigwigs won’t let go of all the power and money they and their predecessors have reaped for decades as a consequence of the CSRA’s authorization for and promotion of union monopoly bargaining without a bitter fight,” said Mr. Mourad.
“Even if the U.S. Supreme Court ultimately rules, as it well may do, that in suspending union rule over federal workers President Trump properly exercised his executive authority, Mr. Kelley and his cohorts could still win the war if H.R.2550 becomes law.
“That’s why the Committee is continuing to rally Capitol Hill opposition to this scheme and to all attempts to hand substantial control over federal staffing policy back to union bosses.
“It is outrageous that most members of the House believe that union bosses should wield monopoly-bargaining power over the federal workforce even when they exploit that power to undermine the President.
“Fortunately, there are ample grounds for hope that Right to Work members and their allies can stop this power grab from ever making it through the Senate. The Committee just has to keep turning up the pressure.”
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Candidate Trump wisely refused to give in to Mr. O’Brien’s anti-Right to Work cajoling, and by the Teamster hierarchy’s own account this is the reason he never received the union’s endorsement, despite internal polling that showed Teamster members lopsidedly preferred him in the general election.
Key appointees of Donald Trump have sent clear signals this year that the President continues to understand that standing up for Americans’ Right to Work is good policy and smart politics.
As soon as Democrat politicians seized full control over Richmond last November, Big Labor bosses began demanding that forced union dues be brought to the Commonwealth of Virginia.