How an obscure federal agency threatens to upend union disputes

A small agency designed to resolve labor-management disputes is taking an unusual approach as agencies enforce Trump's executive orders Photo by MANDEL NGAN/AFP via Getty Images This story has been updated at 4 p.m. ET to include comments from FMCS.A small federal agency has taken unusual steps to interfere in federal employee unions’ ability to secure independent adjudicators to hash out disputes with agency management, though on Friday it clarified that its new approach won’t apply to pre-existing cases, following pressure from advocates and arbitrators alike. As the Trump administration has defended in court the legality of two 2025 executive orders that strip two-thirds of the federal workforce of its collective bargaining rights on national security grounds, its attorneys have frequently relied on the idea that unions could challenge the edicts’ validity as part of preexisting administrative disputes to support the idea that federal judges lack jurisdiction to hear the labor groups’ lawsuits.“The government identified numerous avenues for unions to challenge the executive order’s validity before the [Federal Labor Relations Authority] and then on direct review in a court of appeals, and plaintiff fails to explain why those avenues are unavailable,” the government wrote in a legal brief last October.