National Right to Work Foundation Files Appeals Court Brief in Support of Trump Order Cutting Federal Union Bosses’ Coercive Power
Brief emphasizes President’s authority under both Constitution and federal law to reduce scope of union monopoly bargaining control
Washington, DC (September 18, 2025) – The National Right to Work Foundation has filed an amicus brief at the D.C. Circuit Court of Appeals defending the Trump Administration’s efforts to reduce union bosses’ control within the federal government. The Foundation filed its brief in the case NTEU v. Trump, in which National Treasury Employees Union (NTEU) officials are attacking President Trump’s March 2025 executive order titled “Exclusions from Federal Labor-Management Relations Programs”. That order ended union officials’ monopoly bargaining privileges over a substantial number of federal agencies, citing union officials’ interference with the President’s national security objectives.
“Since 1968, the National Right to Work Legal Defense Foundation, Inc., has been the nation’s leading advocate for employee freedom to choose whether to associate with unions,” the brief says. “To this end, Foundation staff attorneys have represented individual employees before the Supreme Court in groundbreaking free speech and association cases.”
The brief explains that Foundation attorneys have represented many federal employees in resisting union bosses’ attempts to impose their agenda in the workplace. Such workers include Department of Justice employee Jeffrey Morrison, whose ongoing case challenging unionization campaigns in various divisions of the Department has been granted and stayed pending the result of NTEU v. Trump.
Lower Federal Court Used Flawed Interpretations of Federal Law to Rule Against Trump EO
The Foundation’s brief argues that a lower federal court was wrong to enjoin President Trump’s cancellation of monopoly bargaining in certain agencies. The brief explains that Article II of the Constitution grants the President wide authority to preserve national security. Furthermore, the brief says, in the Civil Service Reform Act (CSRA), Congress granted the president specific powers to exempt entire agencies from the obligation to accept union boss bargaining power if national security concerns require it.
“This statutory provision authorizes the President to exclude ‘any agency or subdivision thereof’ if the President determines [CSRA] Section 7103(b)(1)’s conditions are met,” the brief says. “The President’s determination that certain agencies or their subdivisions satisfy Section 7103(b)’s criteria is not subject to judicial review.”
The amicus brief also contends that the Trump Administration was justified in reconsidering which agencies should be exempt from monopoly bargaining requirements, primarily due to union officials’ unabated attempts to undercut Trump’s policy goals. “The District Court found the President’s exclusions under Section 7103(b) to be invalid because they supposedly were motivated by NTEU’s and other unions’ resistance to the administration’s policies,” the brief explains. “However, this proposition supports a finding that the President acted reasonably when determining that being forced to deal with NTEU as an exclusive bargaining agent at certain federal agencies would interfere with national security considerations.
“[T]he President does not have to tolerate unions abusing their powers under [federal law] to stymie his agenda when it may implicate national security,” the brief states.
Unaccountable Union Bosses Should Not Wield Special Influence Over Government Policies
“President Trump’s executive order rightly stops union officials from using their government-granted monopoly bargaining privileges to undermine the national security objectives that voters put President Trump into office to accomplish,” commented National Right to Work Foundation President Mark Mix. “The DC Circuit Court should not let union bosses commandeer the levers of the executive branch in violation of both the Constitution and longstanding federal law.
“However, Trump’s executive order should be the first step toward eliminating union bosses’ monopoly bargaining privileges throughout the whole federal government,” Mix added. “Such power gives unelected union bosses control over the services that American citizens fund with their taxes and elect representatives to oversee. It also forces federal employees – many of whom have never even voted for the union in their workplace – to accept workplace ‘representation’ from union bosses that they may bitterly disagree with.”
DOJ Attorney Battles Biden Admin Union Power Grab Over Justice Department
The following article is from the National Right to Work Legal Defense Foundation’s bi-monthly Foundation Action Newsletter, March/April 2025 edition. To view other editions of Foundation Action or to sign up for a free subscription, click here.
Foundation attorneys challenge last minute DOJ unionization in violation of FLRA case law
NTEU union bosses backed Kamala Harris for President, but when voters rejected her, NTEU union officials and the Biden-Harris Administration hastily moved to install the union at the DOJ in an apparent attempt to obstruct Trump’s priorities.
WASHINGTON, DC – In states across the country, union officials go to great lengths to gain more political influence, and will often violate established law to do so.
As veteran Department of Justice attorney Jeffrey Morrison is discovering, federal agencies are no exception. Morrison is challenging a last-minute attempt by National Treasury Employees Union (NTEU) bosses to gain monopoly bargaining control over attorneys at both the DOJ Civil Rights Division (CRT, where Morrison is employed) and the DOJ Environment and Natural Resources Division (ENRD).
The unionization campaign was fast-tracked just days after Trump’s November election victory, in an apparent attempt to formally hand NTEU union officials power over the divisions prior to inauguration day. Morrison’s legal action asks the Federal Labor Relations Authority (FLRA) to formally review the actions by the Biden DOJ and NTEU officials. The FLRA is the federal agency responsible for adjudicating disputes between federal employees, union officials, and agencies within the federal government.
Brief: DOJ Holdovers and NTEU Bosses Colluded to Flout Existing Law
Morrison, who is receiving free legal aid from the National Right to Work Foundation, contends in filings before the FLRA that the NTEU’s scheme violates an existing FLRA decision in which the agency ruled that CRT attorneys did not comprise a work unit appropriate for unionization.
DOJ management raised this exact concern about the CRT unit with the FLRA after NTEU union bosses began their campaign, but the DOJ dropped its opposition just days after the November federal elections.
Morrison is asking the FLRA to review the decision of the Regional Director to allow the election to go forward in the CRT and ENRD divisions without properly considering if these divisions are an appropriate unit under the law.
Morrison’s filings (called “Applications for Review”) came after DOJ management and NTEU union officials agreed that the CRT and ENRD were work units appropriate for unionization. His Applications for Review point out that a prior FLRA decision, Antitrust Division, held that CRT lawyers “did not have a separate and distinct community of interest from other DOJ trial attorneys” and for that reason couldn’t stand as a distinct bargaining unit.
“[T]he Authority determined this very unit to not be an appropriate unit…The Regional Director’s failure to comply with current, binding Authority precedent is in error and must be reversed,” the Application for Review says regarding the CRT attorneys. This same argument is applied to the ENRD division because it is similarly situated to CRT in the DOJ hierarchy.
FLRA Failed to Conduct Investigation Into NTEU’s Union Scheme
Morrison’s applications also contend that the FLRA “fail[ed] to conduct an independent investigation into the appropriateness of the unit,” despite the law requiring that the FLRA make such a finding.
“An agency agreeing with a union that a unit is appropriate does not mean that unit is actually appropriate. Agencies, like DOJ here, cannot usurp the Authority’s role in deciding unit appropriateness…” say the Applications for Review.
“Right before power changed hands in Washington, DC, NTEU union bosses and DOJ bureaucrats appear to have colluded to flout longstanding precedent that says Justice Department attorneys cannot legally be unionized division by division,” commented National Right to Work Foundation President Mark Mix.
“The FLRA has ignored established precedent to let this hasty unionization attempt go through, and our attorneys are proud to assist Mr. Morrison in opposing this maneuver.”
Starbucks Employee’s Constitutional Challenge to Labor Board Structure Fully Briefed at DC Circuit Court of Appeals
Trump recently removed a Biden NLRB appointee relying on constitutional arguments first raised by NY Starbucks workers’ lawsuit against the NLRB
Washington D.C. (February 24, 2025) – New York Starbucks employees Ariana Cortes and Logan Karam have filed the final brief with the D.C. Circuit Court of Appeals in their landmark lawsuit asserting that the structure of the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) violates the U.S. Constitution.
The case, which is being litigated by National Right to Work Foundation staff attorneys, is especially notable after the Trump Administration asserted the very same legal arguments in its efforts to reform the NLRB. President Trump on January 28 fired NLRB Board Member Gwynne Wilcox, criticizing the same removal protections that Cortes and Karam’s first-in-the-nation lawsuit targeted for violating the Constitution.
The Foundation lawsuit, initially filed by Cortes, and later joined by Karam, states that the National Labor Relations Act of 1935 (NLRA) violates Article II of the Constitution by shielding NLRB Board Members from being removed at the discretion of the president. The appeal challenges a District Court decision that dismissed the lawsuit on the grounds that the plaintiffs lack legal standing. That decision did not address the underlying claim regarding whether the Labor Board’s structure complies with the requirements of the Constitution.
With the case now fully briefed, oral arguments are expected soon. A ruling in favor of Cortes and Karam could help cement making the Board more accountable to independent-minded employees and their rights.
Case Filed After NLRB Denied Starbucks Employees Right to Vote Out Unwanted Union
On April 28, 2023, Cortes submitted a petition, supported by a majority of her colleagues, asking the NLRB to hold a decertification election at her Buffalo-area “Del-Chip” Starbucks store to remove Starbucks Workers United (SBWU) union officials’ bargaining powers over workers. However, NLRB Region 3 rejected Cortes’ petition, citing unfair labor practice accusations made by SBWU union officials against the Starbucks Corporation. Notably, there was no established link between these allegations and the employees’ decertification request.
Similarly, Karam filed a decertification petition seeking a vote to remove the union at his Buffalo-area Starbucks store. Like Cortes’ petition, NLRB officials refuse to allow the vote to take place, citing claims made by SBWU officials. As a result the workers remain trapped under union “representation” they oppose.
“This case demonstrates the direct harm caused to workers rights by unaccountable and biased NLRB bureaucrats that have stifled attempts to remove unwanted union representation,” commented National Right to Work Foundation President Mark Mix. “NLRB officials may not like it, but federal labor law is not exempt from the requirements of the highest law in the land, the Constitution.”
“We are proud that the very legal arguments first made by Foundation attorneys in this case have now been utilized by President Trump to rein in the biased Biden NLRB,” added Mix. “The NLRB’s refusal to process these workers’ decertification petitions, paired with its unchecked authority, exemplifies why reform is overdue.”
Bus Driver Asks National Labor Relations Board to Overturn “Merger Doctrine” Used by Union Bosses to Block Worker-Requested Votes
By “merging” smaller individual bargaining units into mega-units, union officials block workers’ right to escape unwanted “representation” and forced dues
Battle Ground, Washington (February 14, 2025) – Theresa Hause, a school bus driver for First Student Inc. in Battle Ground, Washington, has just filed an appeal asking the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) in Washington, DC, to overturn the so-called “merger doctrine” that is being used to block Hause and her colleagues from holding a vote to end forced union dues at their workplace. Hause’s Request for Review was filed with free legal assistance from National Right to Work Legal Defense Foundation staff attorneys.
The NLRB’s non-statutory “merger doctrine” allows union officials to “merge” employees in a smaller bargaining unit into much larger one. This legal tactic prevents rank-and-file employees exercising their rights under federal law to hold votes to remove unions (known as “decertification elections”) or to end forced-union dues requirements (known as “deauthorization elections”).
Because employees are suddenly part of a much larger and frequently geographically-dispersed “bargaining unit” with workers they have never met and likely don’t even know the names of, once “merged” it becomes effectively impossible for employees to ever reach the 30% threshold of signatures needed to trigger decertificiation or deauthorization elections.
Teamsters and other union officials frequently use non-statutory “merger doctrine” to trap workers in union ranks, forced-dues payments
In previous First Student cases, the “merger doctrine” was wielded by Teamsters officials to block votes at multiple locations on the grounds the workers there were actually part of one massive bargaining unit with over 22,000 drivers in over 100 locations in 33 different states. In another example, a group of less than 10 Wisconsin workers filed a majority-backed petition to remove (i.e. “decertify”) the Teamsters as soon as allowed by federal law, only to be stymied by the “merger doctrine” because they had been secretly “merged” into a multi-company unit of around 24,000 workers.
Hause’s request to end the non-statutory “merger doctrine” follows a decision by a NLRB Regional Director applying the doctrine to her request for a deauthorization election to end Teamsters Local 58 union officials power to require all drivers to pay fees or else be fired. Such a vote is necessary because Hause and her colleagues work in Washington State, which lacks Right to Work protections that make union financial support strictly voluntary.
Hause collected signatures from over 30% of First Student drivers at the facilities in Battle Ground and Hockinson, which is the unit originally organized by Teamsters Local 58 before First Student was even the employer. Rather than let the vote take place, Teamsters lawyers invoked the merger doctrine to disenfranchise the drivers. The Teamsters lawyers argued Hause and her coworkers are only a tiny fraction of First Student drivers under a “National Master First Student Agreement” involving Teamster affiliates across the country.
After the Regional Director sided with the Teamsters to block the workers from voting, an appeal was filed to the five-seat National Labor Relations Board in Washington, DC. Currently the NLRB lacks a quorum to act because there are only two Board members. However, President Trump could appoint three new Members who could then rule on Hause’s request for review once they are confirmed by the United States Senate.
“This case shows how Teamsters bosses, aided by biased NLRB-concocted rules, disenfranchise workers and trap them in union ranks and forced dues payments, effectively in perpetuity,” said National Right to Work Foundation President Mark Mix. “It’s time for the NLRB to overhaul the arbitrary rules, including the so-called ‘merger doctrine,’ that are being used to eviscerate workers’ statutory rights under the National Labor Relations Act to hold a vote to remove a union opposed by a majority of employees or vote to end forced-dues requirements.”
“Quickly ending the ‘merger doctrine’ would be an excellent way for the incoming Trump NLRB majority to signal that, instead of prioritizing coercive union boss power as the Biden NLRB did, the Trump Labor Board will be putting employee rights and freedoms front and center,” added Mix.
