The Department of Justice sued Thursday night to decertify labor unions representing eight federal agencies. The lawsuit was in response to President Trump's Executive Order titled Exclusions From Federal Labor-Management Relations Programs. This executive order vastly expanded the number of agencies granted an exception to the right to unionize under Title VII of the Civil Service Reform Act of 1978; see Fetterman Sulks, Conservatives Cheer As President Trump Takes Sledgehammer to Public Sector Unions – RedState.

The Department of Justice issued a press release declaring: "The plaintiff agencies have collective bargaining agreements (CBAs) with the defendants, which are locals, councils, and Division 10 of the American Federation of Government Employees; those CBAs prevent the plaintiffs from implementing workforce policies that would help them further their national security missions. The plaintiff agencies therefore wish to terminate their CBAs.  But to avoid unnecessary labor strife and to ensure legal certainty, they filed this declaratory judgment action to confirm that they are legally entitled to do so."

“We are taking this fight directly to the public-sector unions,” said Attorney General Pamela Bondi. “By affirmatively suing in Texas, we are aggressively protecting President Trump’s efforts to ensure unions no longer interfere in the national security functions of the government.”

The lawsuit makes special mention of the last-minute collective bargaining agreements signed by several agencies with a five-year term that seemed to have no purpose other than to stymie actions President Trump had announced he would take, like ordering federal workers back to the office, before he was inaugurated.

What makes this case so interesting is that the suit was filed on behalf of the Departments of Defense, Agriculture, Homeland Security, Housing and Urban Development, Justice, Veterans Affairs, the Environmental Protection Agency, and the Social Security Administration in the single-judge Waco Division of the Western District of Texas. It was also filed minutes after President Trump issued his union-busting executive order.

The litigation by government agencies against federal unions Thursday night, in conjunction with Trump’s order, was almost a mirror image of the court cases the unions have been bringing.

The agencies appeared to have coordinated with the White House on the timing of their lawsuit Thursday evening, getting the case swiftly filed in a favorable court before unions had a chance to sue elsewhere to block it. They brought the case in the Waco Division of the Western District of Texas, where the sole judge, Alan D. Albright, a Trump appointee, hears all of the civil and criminal cases. The move to file the lawsuit in Waco comes as lawmakers and legal experts raise concerns about judge-shopping, the practice of filing a lawsuit in a carefully chosen court where the judge is most likely to rule in the plaintiff’s favor.

This is a clear case of what's sauce for the goose is sauce for the gander. The federal unions have also venue shopped to obtain restraining orders that purport to prevent President Trump's cabinet secretaries from releasing term and probationary employees (Federal Judge Pushes Back on Mass Firings of Probationary Federal Employees – RedState) and reorganizing agencies (District Court Judge Blocks Dismantling of Consumer Financial Protection Bureau and That's Another Win: 4th Circuit Rules on Trump Admin's Request for Stay in USAID/DOGE Case – RedState).

Hopefully, the message will sink in that the federal government does not have to act as a passive player in this melodrama. The president has immense power and virtually limitless resources. The federal government has the same ability to judge shop as do any of the plaintiffs. It is no accident that high-profile deportation candidates are ending up in Louisiana, which is covered by the conservative Fifth Circuit. It is unfortunate that issues of significant political import have been reduced to a game, but if it is a game, then the administration should play to win.

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