A federal judge has blocked the Transportation Security Administration and the Department of Homeland Security in their latest attempt to dissolve TSA’s union agreement.
In a Jan. 15 ruling, U.S. District Judge Jamal Whitehead granted an emergency motion to prohibit TSA from eliminating a collective bargaining agreement covering approximately 47,000 airport security screeners. TSA had been planning to dissolve the CBA effective Jan. 18.
The American Federation of Government Employees, which represents transportation security officers under the CBA, celebrated the ruling.
“TSA officers – many of whom are veterans – are patriotic public servants who swore an oath to protect the safety of the traveling public and to ensure that another horrific attack like September 11 never happens again,” AFGE National President Everett Kelley said in a statement. “The administration’s repeated efforts to strip these workers of a voice in their working conditions should concern every person who steps foot in an airport.”
The ruling is the latest development in the Trump administration’s effort to eliminate TSA union rights.
Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem first moved to eliminate TSA’s union last March. AFGE sued to block that effort, and in June, the court issued a preliminary injunction that prohibited TSA from moving forward with eliminating TSO union rights while the court case played out.
But in September, Noem signed a separate determination that directed TSA to strip security screeners of union rights and eliminate the CBA. DHS and TSA did not announce the new determination until early December.
TSA argued that the determination was based on a new analysis of the costs associated with the union agreement.
In Whitehead’s latest ruling, however, he pointedly criticized TSA’s latest attempt to eliminate the union agreement. He wrote that officials “do not cite, quote, or otherwise engage with the operative language” in the preliminary injunction, which prohibits TSA and DHS from denying AFGE and TSO’s “any and all rights and/or working conditions guaranteed in the 2024 CBA.”
“The question before the court is straightforward: does defendants’ planned implementation of the September Noem Determination violate the existing preliminary Injunction? The answer is plainly yes,” Whitehead wrote.
He directed TSA to notify bargaining unit TSO’s that the Noem determination will not take effect on Jan. 18, “the 2024 CBA remains applicable and binding, and the currently pending grievances and arbitrations submitted under the 2024 CBA will continue to be processed.”
The case is still scheduled to go to trial in September 2026, absent any new developments or updates.
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.”
Sen. Chris Van Hollen (D-Md.) speaks to a crowd of federal employees, union members and advocates to push for the passage of the Protect America’s Workforce Act in the Senate. (Photo by Drew Friedman, Federal News Network)
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.
Sen. Chris Van Hollen (D-Md.) speaks to a crowd of federal employees and union representatives to push for the passage of the Protect America's Workforce Act. (Photo by Drew Friedman, Federal News Network)
The Department of Homeland Security has agreed to push back by a week plans to dissolve a union agreement for airport screeners as part of an ongoing court case. The Transportation Security Administration had planned to eliminate the collective bargaining agreement for TSA staff on January 11. But the American Federation of Government Employees, which represents TSA staff, is seeking an emergency order to block that action. TSA says it will delay the effective date to January 18 to allow for arguments over the motion. The judge in the case had already issued a preliminary injunction blocking an earlier attempt by TSA to eliminate the union agreement.
The Federal Emergency Management Agency this week awarded $250 million to 11 states and the National Capital region under a counter-unmanned aircraft system grant program. The states are all hosting FIFA World Cup matches next summer. The grants are intended to help them defend against unauthorized drone activity. The C-UAS Grant Program was established with $500 million from the One Big Beautiful Bill Act. FEMA says the remaining $250 million will be distributed across all U.S. states and territories next year.
The Trump administration’s use of paid administrative leave is coming under scrutiny. Public Employees for Environmental Responsibility is urging the Government Accountability Office to investigate the situation. PEER officials say the leave used within the deferred resignation program was wasteful and unlawful. Despite a limit of 10 admin leave days per year, thousands of feds who took the DRP spent months on paid leave. PEER estimates that the DRP cost about $10 billion in taxpayer money.
The Office of Personnel Management is addressing concerns from Congress over retirement processing delays. In a letter to House Democrats, OPM Director Scott Kupor touted a new digital system that he says is streamlining retirement processing. Kupor also argued that outdated systems, rather than staffing levels, are to blame for the challenges HR employees are facing. The director’s letter comes in response to recent concerns from Democrats over major retirement processing delays, caused by a flood of paperwork from the deferred resignation program.
Members of the National Guard are patrolling in New Orleans on this New Years’ Eve, a year after a truck attack on Bourbon Street killed 14 people. President Trump authorized 350 troops to deploy to the city in order to help with security. The guard members are expected to stay beyond New Years’ though, through the end of the Mardi Gras season. The city has yet to implement permanent security changes in the aftermath of the Jan. 1 attack.
Another court ruling now prevents the Trump administration from dismantling the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau. Judge Amy Berman Jackson ruled against the White House, which had argued the CFPB can’t be funded by earnings from the Federal Reserve because of a deficit on the Fed’s own balance sheet. Jackson said that legal theory was an attempt to circumvent an earlier injunction that kept the administration from firing the agency’s workforce. A union lawsuit over whether the administration can legally shut down the agency is set to go to trial in February.
FILE - In this Dec. 23, 2018 file photo, Transportation Security Administration officers check boarding passes and identification at Logan International Airport in Boston. A House panel is divided over the Trump administration’s move to send TSA employees from airports to the US-Mexico border. Republican lawmaker says the move shows the severity of the crisis on the border, where waves of migrants are arriving. But a Democratic committee chairman says the administration is manufacturing a crisis. (AP Photo/Michael Dwyer, File)
Driving on the Donald J. Trump George Washington Memorial Parkway the other day, I was impressed by the progress in the reconstruction of this vital artery. The contractors and the Trump National Park Service planned well, and the road has remained reasonably passable over the past couple of years. Now the trip to the Donald J. Trump John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts has gotten easier. Ditto for trips to the Donald J. Trump Ronald Reagan Washington National Airport.
I’ve always liked where the Parkway runs close to the Trump Potomac River. You can see across to Trump Washington Monument and the Trump Tidal Basin. But, stately as the nation’s capital appears, change and lots of chaos have marked the calendar year about to end.
But seriously, looking at the D.C. skyline, one wonders about the real state of the republic.
If you search “trump timeline,” you’ll find timelines from many interest groups, most of whom feel aggrieved by the second Trump administration. The release of the Epstein files, “undermining elections,” deportation and Immigration and Customs Enforcement activity, reversing energy policies, legal tangling with Harvard University, military activity against Venezuela — Trump activities make for compelling observation. A lot of this is press-induced, and the Trump style eggs it on. Yet norms have stretched.
I would add that only some of what Trump has done is completely original. But he does things, let’s say, in highly original ways. The result is we have two branches of government in contention with one another. The third branch, and the one detailed first in the Constitution, has rendered itself into an observant chorus with no say over the score.
For federal employees, 2025 will rank as the oddest year many have ever endured. It started with the DOGE swarms, slashing their way to and fro. Then came the deferred resignation program and layoffs. Mass return to the office. Cancellation of collective bargaining agreements at several agencies. Difficulties in settling retirement benefits.
So much news, it almost made me regret retiring. The workforce reductions and changes of conditions may all fall within an administration’s discretionary powers. But rough treatment of persons falls outside of decency. Let’s hope it stops in 2026. I remember a time when a new president of a company I worked for brought in a gaggle of MBAs to do cost cutting. The attitudes felt worse than the cuts, and the company eventually disappeared anyhow.
One thing 2025 has taught me: Keep things in perspective. The worst job situations I remember? I can chuckle about them now. That’s what time does. I once secretly flew to New Jersey and back for a job interview — all in a really extended lunch hour. To be honest, the new job seemed dull, and I never got the offer. Luckily, the situation I was seeking to leave changed overnight for the better, the way better. While you are going through cavalier and high-handed treatment, it’s no fun.
And what about the nation you serve? The absence of any serious debate about what the Government Accountability Office politely calls fiscal unsustainability strikes me as the worst quality in Congress and executive branch policy makers.
It’s not as if no one knows that next year alone the federal deficit will add $2 trillion to the $30 trillion national debt. That Social Security outlays increasingly surpass revenues for as far as the eye can see. That healthcare programs exceed the $3 trillion mark. That interest payments on public debt have passed the $1 trillion mark. The absolute numbers are big, and they are worsening when expressed as a percentage of the nation’s economic output.
So my wish for the nation in the year ahead is fact-facing and rationality, especially on the part of so-called lawmakers.
Beyond thinking of any possible policy and programmatic fixes, the government must resolve to become a better steward of the money it does print and spend.
I’m thinking of Minnesota. The federal prosecutor on the Minnesota Medicare fraud scheme described it as “staggering industrial-scale fraud.” As Trump would say, and McDonald’s used to say, billions and billions. The theft — and it is simple, naked theft — is both heartbreaking and maddening. At an estimated $9 billion, it makes the worst armed robbery seem like child’s play. One almost thinks the perpetrators deserve hanging, such is the extent and callous shrewdness of the crimes. But it also evidences a near total breakdown in program planning, execution and oversight — mainly at the state level, but there’s federal responsibility too. Did anyone notice or care that this was going on?
The staff cuts and turmoil have affected constituent service. People I speak to seem amusedly resigned to how places like the IRS, Social Security and the Postal Service operate. Line employees mostly want to serve effectively, but what kind of backing do they get?
The week before Christmas, I stopped in at my local Postal Service office. It’s busy, a beehive of a facility. I recently became president of a very small non-profit foundation, and we needed to move the P.O. box from Virginia to Maryland so I could easily get the incoming donation checks.
On a Thursday morning, only one employee manned the four-bay counter. Efficiently as she worked, still the line kept stretching to nine, then a dozen, people deep. For a reason I only dimly comprehended, I couldn’t complete the transfer because of a mismatch in phone numbers. I straightened it out a couple of days later, when I had the right information. Two clerks were then on duty, and they kept the lines short.
FILE - In this Oct. 24, 2001, file photo, the United States Capitol in Washington, D.C. is shown in an aerial view. The GOP-led Congress is hoping to approve a must-pass spending bill as the clock ticks toward potential government shutdown this weekend. (AP Photo/J. Scott Applewhite, File)
House Democrats are urging the Transportation Security Administration to abandon efforts to do away with a collective bargaining agreement covering some 47,000 TSA airport screeners.
In a Dec. 23 letter to Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem and acting TSA Administrator Ha Nguyen McNeill, 12 Democrats on the Homeland Security Committee say they have “deep concern” about the latest attempt to overturn TSA’s union agreement.
The letter signees include Homeland Security Committee Ranking Member Bennie Thompson (D-Miss.) and subcommittee on transportation and maritime security Ranking Member LaMonica McIver (D-N.J.).
Their letter points to an ongoing case in federal court over the Department of Homeland Security’s directive to end TSA’s collective bargaining agreement. The judge in that case issued a preliminary injunction in June blocking DHS’s previous efforts to dissolve the agreement.
“DHS’s renewed effort to unilaterally void a valid, seven-year collective bargaining agreement – without a resolution to the pending litigation – displays a clear and flagrant disregard for the rule of law and workers’ rights,” the lawmakers write.
TSA has said it plans to eliminate the collective bargaining agreement and implement a new “labor framework” for the agency starting Jan. 11.
The American Federation of Government Employees represents most TSA staff under the 2024 collective bargaining agreement. AFGE joined with several unions in filing the lawsuit challenging DHS’s prior attempt to dissolve the CBA.
Lawyers representing DHS in federal court recently filed a motion to dismiss the case, arguing that Noem’s new September determination to end TSA union rights is based on “an entirely different supporting record and data unavailable” at the time of Noem’s previous directive, which led to the court case and the preliminary injunction.
AFGE’s lawyers have since countered with an emergency motion to enforce the preliminary injunction. They argue DHS is attempting to “evade the court’s injunction.”
The judge overseeing the case recently directed the parties to confer on a briefing schedule for the emergency injunction.
The Trump administration has sought to do away with most federal employee unions. At DHS, leaders have argued that collective bargaining for TSA officers “is inconsistent with efficient stewardship of taxpayer dollars and impedes the agility required to secure the traveling public,” according to TSA’s statement on the new labor framework.
“Our Transportation Security Officers (TSOs) need to be focused on their mission of keeping travelers safe not wasting countless hours on non-mission critical work,” Adam Stahl, senior official performing the duties of TSA deputy administrator, said as part of a press release. “Under the leadership of Secretary Noem, we are ridding the agency of wasteful and time-consuming activities that distracted our officers from their crucial work.”
But in their letter, House Democrats argue that the 2024 union agreement was negotiated “in good faith to address long-standing issues at TSA, such as high attrition rates, inconsistent workplace policies, and the lack of a proper system for employees to voice safety and operational concerns.”
“Eliminating collective bargaining protections for TSOs will not improve efficiency or security,” they wrote. “It will silence workers who are best positioned to identify safety risks, exacerbate attrition at a time of ongoing staffing challenges, and ultimately make air travel less safe for the American public.”
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