Defeat mounts as another judge tramples Trump’s 'shameful' attack on federal workers

The New York Times reports a Rhode Island federal judge has ordered the Trump administration to restore a union contract that President Donald Trump tried to bust with Veterans Affairs Department workers.

Doug Collins, the V.A. secretary, moved to nullify the agreement with more than 300,000 last August, as part of President Donald Trump’s effort to fire thousands of U.S. employees.

“In a 29-page opinion, Judge Melissa R. Dubose wrote that the union, the American Federation of Government Workers National V.A. Council, had made clear that the termination of the contract was retaliatory — and therefore in violation of the First Amendment — given the opposition to the Trump administration’s labor policies mounted by the union’s umbrella group, the American Federation of Government Employees,” reports the Times.

The decision to end the agreement, she wrote, “seems substantially motivated by the plaintiffs’ history and frequency of vocally opposing changes to labor policies.”

Dubose’s biggest argument for restoring the contract before the conclusion of the court case was the fact that the union was quickly shedding members after the termination of the agreement. That being so, she reasoned that waiting until the lawsuit was finished to restore the contract would cause painful losses for the union and its workers.

She ordered that the three-year contract, which was ratified in June 2023, be reinstated for the remainder of its term.

The Times reports the judge was convinced the Trump administration was acting in a deliberately retaliatory way thanks to Trump’s own words.

“A White House fact sheet on an executive order Mr. Trump’s executive order signed in March, which stated that ‘certain federal unions have declared war on President Trump’s agenda,’” reports the Times. “And she noted various anti-labor statements by Mr. Collins, which she said demonstrated that the ‘laser focus’ of the agency’s leaders ‘was on the ways the V.A. perceived employee unions as frustrating the work and purpose of the V.A.’”

In a statement celebrating the news, National V.A. Council union President Mary Jean Burke, said the decision overcame the Trump administration’s “shameful and hostile attempts to silence V.A. workers.”

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