NTEU Lawsuit: Collective Bargaining, CFPB, and Schedule F

The National Treasury Employees Union has filed a series of lawsuits against the Trump administration since early 2025, challenging an executive order that strips collective bargaining rights from most of the federal workforce, the shutdown of the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, mass firings of probationary employees, and IRS restrictions on union speech. As of mid-2026, none of the major cases has produced a final ruling: two sit before the D.C. Circuit awaiting decision, one is stayed pending a Supreme Court case, and the newest suits are still in early stages.

The Collective Bargaining Executive Order Case

The union’s central case challenges Executive Order 14251, which President Trump issued on March 27, 2025. Titled “Exclusions from Federal Labor-Management Relations Programs,” the order invoked a national security exception under 5 U.S.C. § 7103(b)(1) to remove more than 30 federal agencies from collective bargaining coverage, affecting roughly two-thirds of the federal workforce. Agencies named included the IRS, HHS, EPA, and departments spanning defense, homeland security, veterans affairs, and agriculture.{¹} A second order, EO 14343, followed on August 28, 2025, adding NASA, NOAA (including the National Weather Service), the Patent and Trademark Office, the International Trade Administration, and the Bureau of Reclamation.{²}

NTEU sued in the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia on March 31, 2025 (Case No. 1:25-cv-00935).{³} The complaint made two main arguments. First, that the order exceeded the President’s statutory authority, which permits exclusions only for agencies whose primary function is intelligence, counterintelligence, investigative, or national security work, and only after a determination that bargaining is inconsistent with national security. NTEU alleged the order “parrots the statute’s language” without making those findings, and was actually aimed at making federal employees easier to fire.{⁴} Second, the union claimed the order was First Amendment retaliation, targeting unions that had opposed and sued the administration.{⁵}

The Injunction and Its Reversal

On April 25, 2025, U.S. District Judge Paul L. Friedman granted a preliminary injunction blocking the order. He found NTEU had rebutted the “presumption of regularity” normally afforded to presidential action, pointing to evidence that policy and retaliatory motives, not national security, drove the order.{⁶}

The injunction did not last a month. On May 16, 2025, a divided D.C. Circuit panel stayed it 2-1. Judges Karen Henderson and Justin Walker in the majority found the government likely to succeed on appeal and dismissed NTEU’s claims of lost bargaining power as speculative, noting that OPM guidance had told agencies not to terminate contracts or decertify units during litigation. The panel found the injunction was harming the President by tying the government’s hands on national security. Judge J. Michelle Childs dissented, calling the majority’s harm analysis inconsistent with the government’s own position that its interim guidance was preserving the same status quo the injunction preserved.{⁷}{⁸}

The D.C. Circuit heard the merits in a consolidated proceeding with other union challenges in December 2025. The district court then stayed its own case pending the appeal. NTEU filed supplemental briefs in January 2026. A ruling was still pending as of mid-2026.{⁹}

The CFPB Shutdown Case

In February 2025, NTEU sued Acting CFPB Director Russell Vought (Case No. 1:25-cv-00381) alongside the National Consumer Law Center, the NAACP, the Virginia Poverty Law Center, and the CFPB Employee Association. The plaintiffs alleged a “concerted, expedited effort to shut the agency down,” pointing to mass firings, stop-work orders, contract cancellations, declined funding, and termination of the headquarters lease.{¹⁰}{¹¹}

The complaint raised a separation-of-powers claim, arguing the administration was usurping Congress’s authority by dismantling an agency Congress created, and an Administrative Procedure Act claim challenging the stop-work orders, firings, contract terminations, and lease cancellation as unlawful final agency actions.{¹²} U.S. District Judge Amy Berman Jackson granted a preliminary injunction requiring reinstatement of fired employees, rescission of contract terminations, continued consumer complaint services, and restoration of work resources.

On August 15, 2025, a D.C. Circuit panel vacated that injunction. Judge Katsas, writing for the majority, held that employment claims had to go through the Civil Service Reform Act’s specialized review scheme, that the shutdown allegations did not target discrete final agency action reviewable under the APA, and that the plaintiffs’ broader equitable claims sought impermissible “pervasive judicial control over the day-to-day management of the agency.” Judge Pillard dissented, arguing the decision “contravenes statutes, precedent, and basic principles of our constitutional government” and warning that the administration cannot unilaterally abolish an agency Congress created.{¹¹}{¹³}

The plaintiffs petitioned for rehearing, and the full D.C. Circuit granted en banc review in December 2025. NTEU filed its en banc brief in February 2026, and the court heard argument on February 24, 2026. No decision had issued by mid-2026.{¹³}

The Probationary Employee Firings Case

NTEU joined four other federal employee unions in February 2025 to challenge mass terminations of probationary employees (Case No. 1:25-cv-00420). The suit named President Trump and the heads of nine agencies, including OPM, the IRS, HHS, the CFPB, the Forest Service, Veterans Affairs, the Department of Defense, NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center, and the National Institutes of Health.{¹⁴}

The complaint also targeted OPM’s “deferred resignation” program, which offered employees continued pay through a set date if they resigned. The plaintiffs asked the court to declare the firings and the resignation program unlawful and to enjoin further terminations that skipped reduction-in-force procedures, which require agencies to weigh tenure, military preference, length of service, and performance.{¹⁴}

The district court denied a temporary restraining order in February 2025, finding it lacked subject matter jurisdiction because the claims had to go through agency administrative processes first. In February 2026, the court administratively stayed the case pending two outside decisions: the D.C. Circuit’s ruling in the collective bargaining case and the Supreme Court’s decision in Trump v. Slaughter (No. 25-332), which concerns whether federal courts can block the removal of officials. The Supreme Court heard argument in Slaughter in December 2025 and had not ruled by mid-2026.{⁹}{¹⁵}

The IRS Union Materials Suit

In June 2026, NTEU filed a new First Amendment lawsuit against the IRS in the D.C. district court. The union alleges the IRS directed facilities management to remove and discard union flyers from employee workstations and common areas, and it is seeking a court order blocking enforcement of that directive.{¹⁶}

The Schedule F FOIA Suit

NTEU sued OPM under the Freedom of Information Act on November 14, 2025, seeking petitions submitted by federal agencies to reclassify employee positions under “Schedule Policy/Career,” the current version of what was previously called Schedule F. Reclassification strips affected employees of civil service appeal rights. NTEU had filed its FOIA request in August 2025 and alleged OPM missed the statutory response deadline.{¹⁷} The case (No. 1:25-cv-03948) reached summary judgment before Judge John D. Bates, with cross-motions filed but no ruling by June 2026.{¹⁸}

What Agencies Have Done While the Cases Pend

The litigation has moved slowly, and agencies have not waited. In February 2026, OPM Director Scott Kupor issued a memorandum directing agencies covered by the two executive orders to “proceed to terminate or modify collective bargaining agreements,” using an OPM template notice.{¹⁹} The IRS was among the first to comply, terminating the 2022 National Agreement and a 2025 addendum, telling managers to stop inviting union representatives to formal discussions, and directing them to stop responding to union information requests.{²⁰} By spring 2026, nine agencies had issued termination notices to NTEU, covering roughly half of the workers the union previously represented.{²¹}

NTEU President Doreen Greenwald has maintained that existing contracts remain in effect. In responses to the IRS and the Bureau of the Fiscal Service, she argued that under Section 7114 of Title 5, an agency cannot unilaterally terminate an agreement with a union certified by the Federal Labor Relations Authority when the FLRA has taken no action to decertify it. She also noted the tension with the D.C. Circuit’s May 2025 reasoning, which had partly rested on agencies refraining from terminating contracts during litigation.{²²}

Where Things Stand

Every major case remains open. The D.C. Circuit has not ruled on the collective bargaining executive order after December 2025 oral arguments. The en banc court has not decided the CFPB case after February 2026 arguments. The probationary employee case is stayed pending both the collective bargaining ruling and the Supreme Court’s decision in Trump v. Slaughter. The FOIA case is awaiting a summary judgment ruling. The IRS flyer suit is newly filed.

Greenwald told Congress in February 2026 that 317,000 federal workers had been forced out of government service over the preceding year, with the IRS losing 27 percent of its workforce and OPM sitting on a retirement backlog of nearly 50,000 applications, four times normal.{²³} In an April 2026 court filing, NTEU general counsel Paras N. Shah wrote that the union’s “influence to plummet in its workplaces” as agency actions continued. The union projects losing tens of thousands of members before the courts finish ruling.{²¹}

1
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2
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3
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4
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5
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7
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8
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9
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10
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11
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13
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14
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15
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16
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17
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18
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19
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20
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21
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22
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23
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