Hundreds of federal employees, union members and other workforce advocates gathered in front of the U.S. Capitol building Wednesday afternoon to urge the passage of legislation that would restore their collective bargaining rights.

After the Protect America’s Workforce Act cleared the House in December, federal unions have been pushing over the last several weeks for the Senate to take up the bill’s companion legislation.

The bill, if enacted, would restore collective bargaining for an estimated two-thirds of the federal workforce. In effect, it would reverse two executive orders President Donald Trump signed last year that called on most executive branch agencies to terminate their federal union contracts on the grounds of “national security.”

“It’s about ensuring federal workers are treated with dignity and respect. Collective bargaining rights ensure our jobs and protect frontline workers whose voice in the service matters, and it needs to be heard,” Terry Scott, national executive vice president of the National Treasury Employees Union and longtime IRS revenue officer, said at the union rally Wednesday. “It’s a path towards accountability in government. It’s a path towards ensuring that the civil service recruits and retains top talent to keep America moving.”

In December, House lawmakers voted 231-195 to pass the Protect America’s Workforce Act. The entire Democratic Caucus, along with 20 Republicans, voted in favor of the legislation. The bill’s passage came after a discharge petition reached the required signature threshold to force a House floor vote.

The Senate companion bill, first introduced in September and led by Sens. Mark Warner (D-Va.) and Chris Van Hollen (D-Md.), has gained the support of the entire Democratic Caucus. Two Republicans, Sens. Lisa Murkowski (R-Alaska) and Susan Collins (R-Maine), are also co-sponsors of the bill.

At Wednesday’s federal union rally, Van Hollen criticized the president’s broad move to strip collective bargaining rights from federal employees at a majority of agencies.

“This was just a sham and a farce to deny patriotic federal employees the opportunity to participate in a union, to protect their rights,” Van Hollen said. “By protecting the federal workforce, we also protect the American people and the good work that you do on behalf of the American people.”

In March 2025, Trump ordered most agencies to cancel their contracts with federal unions, on the grounds that those agencies work primarily in national security. The president signed a second executive order last August, expanding the number of agencies instructed to bar federal unions from bargaining on behalf of employees.

Randy Erwin, national president of the National Federation of Federal Employees, said Trump’s action “blatantly violates the law.”

“It is by far the biggest attack that we have ever seen on collective bargaining rights in the history of this country. We cannot allow it to continue,” Erwin said Wednesday at the rally. “Unions have been bargaining in the federal sector since the Kennedy administration, and there are no examples of that compromising our national security.”

In addition to the legislation, multiple federal unions have sued the Trump administration over the pair of executive orders. One lawsuit from the American Federation of Government Employees argues that the administration took an overly broad interpretation of agencies that work primarily in national security, and that many of the agencies impacted by Trump’s orders have nothing to do with national security.

Following AFGE’s lawsuit, a federal judge last April blocked the administration from enforcing the executive order. After an appeals court later overturned that decision, several agencies moved forward with “de-recognizing” their unions and rescinding collective bargaining agreements.

As a result, recent federal workforce data shows that a significant percentage of federal employees has lost the ability to join a bargaining unit over the last year. Governmentwide, bargaining unit eligibility has dropped 18%, from 56% to 38%, according to data from the Office of Personnel Management.

At the same time, there has been a 20% increase in ineligibility for union representation. About half of the federal workforce is currently not eligible to join a bargaining unit. Another 12% of federal employees are eligible for union representation, but have not officially joined a bargaining unit.

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