Trump orders more agencies to nix collective bargaining agreements

In an executive order signed Thursday afternoon, President Donald Trump added more agencies and a few agency components to an already extensive list of federal entities slated for collective bargaining cancellations. Trump said the terminations of labor contracts are intended “to enhance the national security of the United States.”

Trump’s initial executive order from March 27 invoked a narrow, rarely used portion of the 1978 Civil Service Reform Act that allows a president to suspend collective bargaining for national security purposes. The White House said the additional agencies it’s now directing to cancel collective bargaining agreements all have missions dealing with national security as well.

The agencies that Trump’s existing anti-union orders now cover are NASA; the U.S. Agency for Global Media; the National Weather Service and the National Environmental Satellite, Data and Information Service — both within the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration; the Bureau of Reclamation’s hydropower program; and the Patent and Trademark Office’s commissioner of patents office.