Worker Protection Agency Is Ditching Its Judges To Satisfy Trump Administration

Unions are alarmed by the plan for the Federal Labor Relations Authority, saying it will give the president more power over the federal workforce.

A small but essential federal agency plans to get rid of its judges who help resolve government workplace disputes, a move unions say will consolidate more power among President Donald Trump’s political appointees and weaken the collective-bargaining system.

The Federal Labor Relations Authority has told Congress it will eliminate its administrative law judges as part of a reorganization scheme to comply with the Trump administration’s cost-cutting orders. The judges conduct hearings involving unlawful firings and union contract violations, and issue decisions that can be reviewed by the authority’s three presidentially appointed members.

Unions are concerned because the three judges serve as subject-matter experts who are insulated from political meddling to protect their neutrality. With the judges gone, the review of unfair labor practice cases would be left solely to the president’s appointees.

The FLRA is an obscure federal agency with only around 100 employees, but it serves a critical role in government labor relations. It’s typically where federal unions turn to when they believe their members’ rights have been violated, which has been frequent during the Trump era.

The plan was laid out in the FLRA’s budget proposal to Congress, dated May 30. The document states that getting rid of the judges is one of many “organizational changes necessary to align with the Administration’s vision for the Federal government.” It argues that the judges don’t have a large enough caseload ― on average, 15 hearings per year ― to justify having three of them.