Trump cannot snatch Foreign Service Activists of his collective bargain rights, says the judge

Washington: A federal judge on Wednesday agreed to temporarily block the Trump administration by removing foreign service employees of his collective bargain rights. US District Judge Paul Freedman provided a federal labor union request for the initial prohibition, while its case against the government is pending, the Republican administration prevents the implementation of a major part of an executive order signed by President Donald Trump. The American Foreign Service Association, which represents more than 18,000 members of the Foreign Service, filed a lawsuit to stop the administration on the 27 March executive order. The Sangh stated that Trump’s order “extended decades of stable labor-management relations in Foreign Service,” removed all members of the state department and American agency for international development from a law coverage that gives them the right to organize and bargain collectively. Government lawyers stated that Trump determined that “agencies with a primary national security focus are being interrupted by restrictive conditions of collective bargaining agreements that disappoint their ability to protect the interests of American people.” He wrote, “It is the determination of the President elected democratically about the public interest in that field.” The lawyers of the plaintiff claim that Trump issued an executive order to retaliate against the labor unions and achieve any national security goals. The union lawyers wrote, “Foreign services employees have collectively lost the ability to bargain when it matters most, as the administration continues to continue the ongoing changes in the working conditions and employment of the employees.” Last month, in a separate case, the same judge temporarily stopped the administration from canceling the rights of collective bargaining for hundreds of thousands of federal employees. Freedman ruled that an important part of Trump’s executive order cannot be implemented in about three dozen agencies and departments where employees are represented by the National Treasury Employees Union. The government appealed for his decision. Democratic President Bill Clinton nominated Freedman in the bench in 1994.