3. Central Personnel Agencies · Notable
Enforce statutory management rights against federal unions
Printed page 81 3. Central Personnel Agencies
“But the management rights are still in statute, have been enforced by some Administrations, and should be enforced again by any future OPM and agency managements, which should not be intimidated by union power.”
What has happened
- Partially done
Management rights were not so much enforced as made unnecessary. Executive Order 14343 widened the exclusions in August 2025 to NASA, the U.S. Agency for Global Media and further Commerce and Interior components, and in February 2026 OPM told every covered agency to proceed: notify the unions, terminate the applicable collective bargaining agreements — OPM supplied a template notice — and report the status of every bargaining unit monthly until the terminations are complete. Where the exclusions reach, there is no contract left to assert management rights against. Partial rather than done because the Quote asks that the statutory management rights in 5 U.S.C. 7106 be enforced by OPM and agency managements, and for the third of the workforce still covered by Chapter 71 no such guidance has issued.
- Attempted
The D.C. Circuit stayed the injunction pending appeal, finding the government likely to prevail because the union had not established irreparable harm. The exclusions took effect again.
- Blocked
The District Court for the District of Columbia preliminarily enjoined the order at the National Treasury Employees Union's suit, holding that Congress had spoken unequivocally in 1978 that collective bargaining in the civil service is in the public interest.
- Attempted
Executive Order 14251 determined that a long list of agencies and subdivisions — State, Defense, Treasury, Veterans Affairs, Justice and components of HHS, Homeland Security and Interior among them — have a primary function of intelligence, counterintelligence, investigative or national security work, and excluded them from the Federal Service Labor-Management Relations Statute under 5 U.S.C. 7103(b)(1). A federal court put its reach at roughly two-thirds of the federal workforce. Nothing had yet changed at the bargaining table.
Research log
What was searched, and what didn’t count as evidence
Research notes
Researched 2026-08-27.
The administration did not enforce management rights inside collective bargaining; it removed collective bargaining from most of the workforce.
- EO 14251 (2025-03-27), read in full: invokes 5 U.S.C. 7103(b)(1) to determine that named agencies and subdivisions have a primary function of intelligence, counterintelligence, investigative or national security work and that Chapter 71 cannot be applied to them consistent with national security. The list runs from State, Defense, Treasury, Veterans Affairs and Justice through HHS, DHS and Interior components. The district court’s finding on its scale: it “removed collective bargaining rights from approximately two-thirds of the federal workforce.”
- EO 14343 (2025-08-28) extends the exclusions to NASA, the U.S. Agency for Global Media, ITA, parts of the Patent and Trademark Office and NOAA, and Bureau of Reclamation hydropower units.
- Litigation. NTEU v. Trump, D.D.C. No. 25-0935: preliminary injunction, opinion of 2025-04-28; the D.C. Circuit stayed it on 2025-05-16, holding the government likely to prevail because the union had not shown irreparable harm. A parallel challenge ran in AFGE v. Trump, N.D. Cal. No. 3:25-cv-03070.
- Implementation. OPM’s memorandum of 2026-02-12 (revised 2026-02-17) tells covered agencies to notify unions that they are terminating applicable collective bargaining agreements, supplies a template termination notice, and requires monthly status reports to OPM until every termination notice is executed.
On the narrower point the Quote makes — that OPM and agency managements should enforce the management rights in 5 U.S.C. 7106 and not be intimidated — no OPM guidance on section 7106 appears in the CHCO Council listing.
- Action
- restore
- Object
- statutory management rights under the CSRA
- ID
- 126