Fri, January 31, 2025
By Jack Queen
(Reuters) - Donald Trump said on Friday that any collective bargaining agreements reached with federal workers within 30 days of his inauguration will not be approved, the latest salvo in the U.S. president's bid to remake the federal workforce.
In a memo addressed to the heads of all executive departments and agencies, Trump said former U.S. President Joe Biden's administration purposefully finalized collective bargaining agreements with federal employees in its final days "in an effort to harm my administration by extending its wasteful and failing policies beyond its time in office."
It was not immediately clear how many agreements would be affected by the new policy, which refers to them as "lame-duck collective bargaining agreements."
Collective bargaining agreements are deals between unions and their employees that outline working conditions, pay and other policies.
The move comes as President Donald Trump embarks on a massive makeover of the U.S. government, firing and sidelining hundreds of civil servants in his first steps toward downsizing the bureaucracy and installing more loyalists.
The memo cites a U.S. Department of Education collective bargaining agreement reached three days before Trump took office that "generally prohibits the agency from returning remote employees to their offices."
Trump has signed an executive order that would require federal employees to work in-office five days a week, reversing a remote working trend that took off in the early stages of the COVID-19 pandemic.
(Reporting by Jack Queen in New York; Editing by Noeleen Walder and Sandra Maler)
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Trump to sign memo lifting Biden's last-minute collective bargaining agreements
Brooke Singman
Fri, January 31, 2025
FIRST ON FOX: President Donald Trump is expected to sign a memo Friday to lift the collective bargaining agreements (CBA) former President Joe Biden put into effect before leaving office, Fox News Digital has learned.
The president’s memo will direct federal agencies to reject last-minute collective bargaining agreements issued by the Biden administration, which White House officials said were designed to "constrain" the Trump administration from reforming the government.
Trump Administration Offers Buyouts To Federal Employees, Including Remote Workers: 'Deferred Resignation'
President Donald Trump's memo will direct federal agencies to reject last-minute collective bargaining agreements issued by the Biden administration.
The memo prohibits agencies from making new collective bargaining agreements during the final 30 days of a president’s term. It also directs agency heads to disapprove any collective bargaining agreements that Biden put through during the final 30 days of his term.
The White House said collective bargaining agreements enacted before that time period will remain in effect while the Trump administration "negotiates a better deal for the American people."
Biden’s Social Security Administration Commissioner, Martin O’Malley, in December 2024 came to an agreement with the American Federation of Government Employees guaranteeing that the agency’s 42,000 employees would not have to work in office during the Trump administration.
The White House told Fox News Digital that the new policy "ensures the American people get the policies they voted for, instead of being stuck with the wasteful and ineffective Biden policies rejected at the ballot box."
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"The outgoing Biden administration negotiated lame-duck, multi-year collective bargaining agreements — during the week before the inauguration — in an attempt to tie the incoming Trump administration’s hands," a White House fact sheet on the memo obtained by Fox News Digital states.
The White House pointed to the Biden administration’s Department of Education’s agreement that prohibited the return of remote employees and agreements for the Biden Small Business Administration and Federal Trade Commission.
President Donald Trump’s new memo is also aimed to ensure that federal government agencies operate under similar rules as private sector unions and employers.
"These CBAs attempt to prevent President Trump from implementing his promises to the American people, such as returning Federal employees to the office to make government operate more efficiently," the fact sheet states. "President Biden’s term of office ended on January 20th. Under this memorandum, he and future Presidents cannot govern agencies after leaving office by locking in last-minute CBAs."
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The president’s new memo is also aimed to ensure that federal government agencies operate under similar rules as private sector unions and employers.
The memo comes after the White House Office of Personnel Management (OPM) directed agency and department heads to notify employees by the new return to in-person work order. That order required employees to work full-time in the office unless excused due to disability or qualifying medical conditions.
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Additionally, OPM sent emails this week to the full federal workforce offering the option of resignation with full pay and benefits until Sept. 30 if they do not want to return to the office. Those workers have until Feb. 6 to decide.
The federal workers who did not get that option include postal workers, military immigration officials, some national security officials and any positions agencies decide to carve out.
Trump Plans To Nullify New Federal Union Contracts
Dave Jamieson
HUFFPOST
Updated Sat, February 1, 2025
President Donald Trump said late Friday that he plans to nullify federal employee union contracts that agencies agreed to late in former President Joe Biden’s term.
In a memo to agency heads, Trump said that Biden officials had negotiated new collective bargaining agreements meant “to harm my Administration,” in part by undermining his return-to-office mandate, and that he intended to scrap them and bargain his own.
He referred specifically to a contract ratified with the Education Department days before he took office.
“Such last-minute, lame-duck CBAs, which purport to bind a new President to his predecessor’s policies, run counter to America’s system of democratic self-government,” he claimed.
The memo did not make clear his legal justification for nullifying existing union contracts. He referred to a 2010 Supreme Court decision that stated that a president “cannot choose to bind his successors by diminishing their powers.”
“Therefore, it is the policy of the executive branch,” Trump proclaimed, that contracts negotiated within 30 days prior to a presidential inauguration “shall not be approved.”
He said that contracts involving federal law enforcement would be exempted.
If our contracts are violated, we will aggressively defend them.Everett Kelley, president, American Federation of Government Employees
The American Federation of Government Employees, a union representing some 800,000 workers, said Trump would be breaching legally binding contracts. The union called it an attempt to “frighten and confuse career federal employees.”
“Federal employees should know that approved union contracts are enforceable by law, and the president does not have the authority to make unilateral changes to those agreements,” Everett Kelley, the union’s president, said in a statement. “AFGE members will not be intimidated. If our contracts are violated, we will aggressively defend them.”
Unions at many federal agencies made a point of negotiating new contracts last year before the Trump administration arrived, with an eye toward locking in contractual protections. Trump has promised to lay off workers en masse, weaken job protections and end the remote work arrangements that federal employees have had for years.
HuffPost reported last week on negotiations at the Federal Trade Commission, where a group of attorneys, economists and statisticians secured a temporary contract the weekend before Trump appointed a new Republican chair. Such late agreements appear to be the sort Trump is looking to wipe out early in his tenure.
Warring with the federal workforce was a hallmark of Trump’s first presidency, and he’s quickly picking up where he left off.
On his first day in office he issued an executive order outlining his intention to reclassify tens of thousands of civil servants to make it easier to fire them. Meanwhile, the Office of Personnel Management is offering federal workers a deferred resignation program, suggesting they could resign now and still be paid through September.
OPM sent out a follow-up email about that offer Thursday, answering some frequently asked questions and insulting workers in the process.
“We encourage you to find a job in the private sector as soon as you would like to do so,” the email explained. “The way to greater American prosperity is encouraging people to move from their lower productivity jobs in the public sector to higher productivity jobs in the private sector.”
Trump offers buyout to all federal workers. How many are there in Connecticut?
Updated Sat, February 1, 2025
President Donald Trump said late Friday that he plans to nullify federal employee union contracts that agencies agreed to late in former President Joe Biden’s term.
In a memo to agency heads, Trump said that Biden officials had negotiated new collective bargaining agreements meant “to harm my Administration,” in part by undermining his return-to-office mandate, and that he intended to scrap them and bargain his own.
He referred specifically to a contract ratified with the Education Department days before he took office.
“Such last-minute, lame-duck CBAs, which purport to bind a new President to his predecessor’s policies, run counter to America’s system of democratic self-government,” he claimed.
The memo did not make clear his legal justification for nullifying existing union contracts. He referred to a 2010 Supreme Court decision that stated that a president “cannot choose to bind his successors by diminishing their powers.”
“Therefore, it is the policy of the executive branch,” Trump proclaimed, that contracts negotiated within 30 days prior to a presidential inauguration “shall not be approved.”
He said that contracts involving federal law enforcement would be exempted.
If our contracts are violated, we will aggressively defend them.Everett Kelley, president, American Federation of Government Employees
The American Federation of Government Employees, a union representing some 800,000 workers, said Trump would be breaching legally binding contracts. The union called it an attempt to “frighten and confuse career federal employees.”
“Federal employees should know that approved union contracts are enforceable by law, and the president does not have the authority to make unilateral changes to those agreements,” Everett Kelley, the union’s president, said in a statement. “AFGE members will not be intimidated. If our contracts are violated, we will aggressively defend them.”
Unions at many federal agencies made a point of negotiating new contracts last year before the Trump administration arrived, with an eye toward locking in contractual protections. Trump has promised to lay off workers en masse, weaken job protections and end the remote work arrangements that federal employees have had for years.
HuffPost reported last week on negotiations at the Federal Trade Commission, where a group of attorneys, economists and statisticians secured a temporary contract the weekend before Trump appointed a new Republican chair. Such late agreements appear to be the sort Trump is looking to wipe out early in his tenure.
Warring with the federal workforce was a hallmark of Trump’s first presidency, and he’s quickly picking up where he left off.
On his first day in office he issued an executive order outlining his intention to reclassify tens of thousands of civil servants to make it easier to fire them. Meanwhile, the Office of Personnel Management is offering federal workers a deferred resignation program, suggesting they could resign now and still be paid through September.
OPM sent out a follow-up email about that offer Thursday, answering some frequently asked questions and insulting workers in the process.
“We encourage you to find a job in the private sector as soon as you would like to do so,” the email explained. “The way to greater American prosperity is encouraging people to move from their lower productivity jobs in the public sector to higher productivity jobs in the private sector.”
Trump offers buyout to all federal workers. How many are there in Connecticut?
Melina Khan, USA TODAY NETWORK - New England
Fri, January 31, 2025
President Donald Trump announced Tuesday that all federal employees are being offered a buyout to resign if they don't want to return to in-person work.
The U.S. Office of Personnel Management said in an email memo to employees that the offer would give federal workers eight months of pay and benefits if they resign by Feb. 6.
"If you choose not to continue in your current role in the federal workforce, we thank you for your service to your country and you will be provided with a dignified, fair departure from the federal deferred resignation program," the memo said.
Federal worker buyout: Who does it apply to?
The federal worker buyout doesn't apply to all government employees. The following groups are not included in the buyout offer:
Military personnel of the armed forces
U.S. Postal Service employees
Positions related to immigration enforcement and national security
There are some other exclusions.
How many federal workers are in CT?
Connecticut has 5,325 federal civilian employees as of March 2024, according to data from the U.S. Office of Personnel Management,
How many total federal workers are there?
According to data from the U.S. Office of Personnel Management, there are more than two million civilian federal employees as of December 2024 estimates.
Which states employ the most federal workers?
Washington, D.C., employs the most federal employees as of March 2024. After that, the states with the highest totals are:
California: 147,487
Virginia: 144,483
Maryland: 142,876
Texas: 129,738
Florida: 94,014
This article originally appeared on Cape Cod Times
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