Executive Order Excluding Federal Agencies from Collective Bargaining Requirements Was Wrongly Enjoined, Ninth Circuit Holds

From today’s opinion in Am. Fed. of Gov’t Employees v. Trump, by Judge Daniel Bress, joined by Judges John Owens and Bridget Bade:

On March 27, 2025, the President signed Executive Order 14,251, invoking his authority under 5 U.S.C. § 7103(b)(1) to exclude various federal agencies and subdivisions from collective bargaining requirements based on national security considerations. The district court preliminarily enjoined the Executive Order after concluding that the President issued it to retaliate against federal employee unions, in violation of the First Amendment. We stayed the district court’s injunction pending appeal. Consistent with the reasoning in our prior stay order, we now vacate the preliminary injunction….

[T]he Federal Service Labor-Management Relations Statute (FSLMRS) … “expressly protects the rights of federal employees ‘to form, join, or assist any labor organization, or to refrain from any such activity,’ and imposes on federal agencies and labor organizations a duty to bargain collectively in good faith.” The FSLMRS exempts several federal agencies from coverage, including the FBI, the Government Accountability Office, and the CIA…. [And the statute adds that]

The President may issue an order excluding any agency or subdivision thereof from coverage under this chapter if the President determines that—

(A) the agency or subdivision has as a primary function intelligence, counterintelligence, investigative, or national security work, and

(B) the provisions of this chapter cannot be applied to that agency or subdivision in a manner consistent with national security requirements and considerations.

Since the FSLMRS was enacted in 1978, every President other than President Biden has signed executive orders that exclude designated agency subdivisions from the FSLMRS under § 7103(b)(1).

On March 27, 2025, President Trump signed Executive Order 14,251. Invoking § 7103(b)(1), the President determined that certain agencies “have as a primary function intelligence, counterintelligence, investigative, or national security work,” and that the FSLMRS “cannot be applied to these agencies and agency subdivisions in a manner consistent with national security requirements and considerations.”

Under EO 14,251, the agencies designated for exclusion include, inter alia, the Departments of State, Justice, and Veterans Affairs, the EPA, nearly all of the Departments of Energy, Defense, and Treasury, and various subdivisions of the Departments of Agriculture, Homeland Security, and Health and Human Services. The Executive Order exempted from exclusion “local employing offices of any agency police officers, security guards, or firefighters, provided that this exclusion does not apply to the Bureau of Prisons.” It appears that EO 14,251 is the largest single effort to date to exclude agencies and subdivisions from collective bargaining on national security grounds.

Upon issuing the Executive Order, the White House posted a “Fact Sheet” to the White House website…. It described how the various excluded agencies were involved in national security functions relating to national defense, border security, foreign relations, energy security, cybersecurity, and so on. The Fact Sheet further explained that collective bargaining agreements and “hostile Federal unions” were impeding national security, including by hamstringing agencies in their ability to address poor performance and employee misconduct.

Citing “widely fil[ed]” union grievances, the Fact Sheet also stated that “[c]ertain Federal unions have declared war on President Trump’s agenda” and that “[t]he largest Federal union describes itself as ‘fighting back’ against Trump.” The Fact Sheet further expressed that “President Trump supports constructive partnerships with unions who work with him” but “will not tolerate mass obstruction that jeopardizes his ability to manage agencies with vital national security missions.” …

[W]e conclude that on this record, AFGE has not demonstrated a likelihood of success or serious questions on the merits of its retaliation claim. “To bring a First Amendment retaliation claim, the plaintiff must allege that (1) it engaged in constitutionally protected activity; (2) the defendant’s actions would ‘chill a person of ordinary firmness’ from continuing to engage in the protected activity; and (3) the protected activity was a substantial motivating factor in the defendant’s conduct—i.e., that there was a nexus between the defendant’s actions and an intent to chill speech.” Upon making a prima facie showing, “the burden shifts to the defendant official to demonstrate that even without the impetus to retaliate he would have taken the action complained of.” “If there is a finding that retaliation was not the but-for cause of the adverse action, the claim fails for lack of causal connection between unconstitutional motive and resulting harm, despite proof of some retaliatory animus in the official’s mind.”

Assuming without deciding that AFGE has made out a prima facie case of retaliation, we conclude, as we did when we stayed the district court’s injunction pending appeal, that “on this record the government has shown that the President would have taken the same action even in the absence of the protected conduct” [citing stay opinion (citing Mt. Healthy City Sch. Dist. Bd. of Educ. v. Doyle (1977)]. The district court seemingly did not address this issue, but it is an impediment for AFGE on the record as it now stands.

EO 14,251 discloses no retaliatory animus on its face. It instead expresses that the President’s primary—if not only—concern with union activity was its interference with national security, which is a judgment that § 7103(b)(1) at least presumptively entrusts to the Executive. AFGE thus relies heavily on the Fact Sheet. There may be some question about whether it is proper to consider that kind of extrinsic evidence in the face of a neutral Executive Order, particularly when the President is exercising congressionally delegated national security authority, for which an appreciable measure of deference is traditionally afforded.

But even considering the Fact Sheet, matters do not change. As we previously recognized:

[E]ven accepting for purposes of argument that certain statements in the Fact Sheet reflect a degree of retaliatory animus toward Plaintiffs’ First Amendment activities, the Fact Sheet, taken as a whole, also demonstrates the President’s focus on national security. The Fact Sheet first explains that the excluded agencies and subdivisions serve national security in areas including national defense, border security, foreign relations, energy security, pandemic preparedness and response, and cybersecurity. It then states that the FSLMRS allows unions to “obstruct agency management,” including by impeding the removal of employees for “poor performance or misconduct,” which is contrary to the need for “a responsive and accountable civil service to protect our national security.” The Fact Sheet thus conveys that EO 14,251 advances national security by curtailing union activity that undermines the agile functioning of government offices with national security-related missions. In other words, the Fact Sheet conveys an overarching objective of protecting national security through its assessment that collective bargaining impedes the functioning of agencies with national security-related responsibilities.

The OPM [Office of Personnel Management] Guidance on EO 14,251 buttresses this conclusion because it highlights how collective bargaining has assertedly undermined the President’s ability to oversee the federal workforce, which is essential “to take care that the law is faithfully executed and to protect America’s national security.” In short, because EO 14,251 has “a legitimate grounding in national security concerns, quite apart from any” retaliatory animus, the government on the existing record has shown that the President would have taken the same actions in the absence of the asserted retaliatory intent.

AFGE focuses on particular lines in the Fact Sheet that we quoted above. But the law does not require us to read the Fact Sheet in the worst possible light, especially when considered alongside the neutral Executive Order and OPM Guidance, and when affording the President some measure of deference in the national security context. The statements in the Fact Sheet on which AFGE relies do not torpedo the government’s “but-for” defense, especially when there is no basis to conclude that collective bargaining activities that assertedly bear on national security can never inform a § 7103(b)(1) determination. See 5 U.S.C. § 7103(b)(1)(B) (permitting the President to consider “the provisions of this chapter,” i.e., the FSLMRS, in relation to “national security requirements and considerations”). On this record, the government has shown not only that it could have, but also that it would have, issued EO 14,251 in the absence of the asserted retaliatory animus.

AFGE tries to cast doubt on this conclusion by focusing on those agencies and subdivisions that EO 14,251 excludes from the FSLMRS. It argues that some of the excluded agencies have no meaningful role in promoting national security and that some police officers, security guards, and firefighters at otherwise excluded agencies are exempted from exclusion under EO 14,251, except for Bureau of Prisons (BOP) personnel, who are exclusively represented by AFGE. AFGE asks us to infer discriminatory animus based on how EO 14,251 treats different agencies and subdivisions.

Although we express no opinion on plaintiffs’ ultra vires claim, which is not before us, AFGE asks us to read too much into the coverage of EO 14,251. There are various reasons why a President, when exercising national security authority under § 7103(b)(1), might include some agencies and subdivisions but not others in an Executive Order like this, and why one might also distinguish between police officers and BOP personnel. Even assuming EO 14,251 is over-or under-inclusive, it does not follow that the President would only have issued this Executive Order because of his purported retaliatory animus. We need not infer the most jaundiced, retaliatory account of the President’s actions without greater support in the record. Regardless, even if the nature of EO 14,251’s line-drawing raises some inference of discriminatory animus, there is still substantial indicia in the record—through the Order itself, the Fact Sheet, and the OPM Guidance—that the President still “would have issued the Order, regardless of Plaintiffs’ speech, based on the perceived impact of union activities and collective bargaining on the sound operation of agencies and subdivisions with national security-related missions.” …

Judge Owens joined the panel opinion, but added:

I write separately only to note that we are reviewing a preliminary injunction, which potentially is a distinction with a difference. “The propriety of preliminary relief and resolution of the merits are … ‘significantly different’ issues.” “The purpose of such interim equitable relief is not to conclusively determine the rights of the parties, but to balance the equities as the litigation moves forward.”

Here, the district court did not address the applicability of Mt. Healthy City Sch. Dist. Bd. of Educ. v. Doyle (1977), to the question at hand. “The Mt. Healthy but-for causation inquiry is purely a question of fact.” And based on the preliminary record before us now, I agree that the government likely would prevail on this issue, meaning that the plaintiffs have failed their significant burden. But “[b]ecause our review of a preliminary injunction is limited to ‘the law applied by the district court and because the fully developed factual record may be materially different from that initially before the district court, our disposition of appeals from most preliminary injunctions may provide little guidance as to the appropriate disposition on the merits.”

Joshua M. Koppel, Melissa N. Patterson, Tyler J. Becker, Andrew M. Bernie, and Benjamin T. Takemoto represent the government.