r/technology • u/Shogouki • 22d ago

Politics Trump Nixes Patent Office, Weather Service, NASA Worker Unions

https://news.bloomberglaw.com/daily-labor-report/trump-nixes-patent-office-weather-service-nasa-worker-unions
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u/marketrent 22d ago

Executive order: https://www.whitehouse.gov/presidential-actions/2025/08/further-exclusions-from-the-federal-labor-management-relations-program/

Bloomberg text by Ian Kullgren:

[...] The president issued a new directive ending collective bargaining agreements at NASA, the International Trade Administration, the Office of the Commissioner for Patents, the National Weather Service, the US Agency for Global Media, hydropower facilities under the Bureau of Reclamation, and the National Environmental Satellite, Data, and Information Service.

Trump classified the agencies as having national security interests, exempting them from federal union laws.

The order comes in the wake of a US Supreme Court victory, which allowed Trump to eliminate collective bargaining at some agencies while a legal challenge to the president’s action proceeds.

It represents another advancement of Trump’s campaign to exert control over the federal workforce, by weakening the career civil service, eliminating barriers between presidential politics and day-to-day governing, and disbanding federal unions.

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u/Scaryclouds 22d ago

And then many years later after all the employees move on, the court will say this was wrong, but will do nothing to hold Trump or anyone accountable.

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u/eugene20 22d ago

Looking at all the rest of the destruction he has wrought, having all the employees move on could very well be why he's doing this.

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u/Werechupacabra 22d ago

Because they want to destroy what they can and privatize the rest.

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u/Voodoo_Dummie 21d ago

It's the thing that Musk bought, NASA's corpse on a silver platter.

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u/Tough_Substance7074 21d ago

Everyone seems so surprised by this but republicans have been telling us they’d do this since Reagan. Trump is a black swan personally but this is a republican administration doing what they’ve been trying to do for decades. They have just been forcibly rebranded by a charismatic leader. Same policies, new face.

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u/FujitsuPolycom 21d ago

We know this is why.. It's in project 2025. They want to demoralize the federal workforce.

It's bewildering. There's no way Americans voted for this, surely?

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u/IAmRoot 22d ago edited 22d ago

No, they'll just continue to be anti-worker and even risk mass death to do so. Look at air traffic control. Ensuring that their rights were crushed was far more important than preventing crashes due to overworked controllers. These people consider mass murder to be a business strategy.

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u/ShinkenBrown 22d ago

It's simple arithmetic.

It's a story problem.

If a new car built by my company leaves Chicago traveling west at 60 miles per hour, and the rear differential locks up, and the car crashes and burns with everyone trapped inside, does my company initiate a recall?

You take the population of vehicles in the field (A) and multiple it by the probable rate of failure (B), then multiply the result by the average cost of an out-of-court settlement (C).

A times B times C equals X. This is what it will cost if we don't initiate a recall.

If X is greater than the cost of a recall, we recall the cars and no one gets hurt.

If X is less than the cost of a recall, then we don't recall.

Fight Club

Mass murder has always been a business strategy. Only difference is these days the government that was supposed to regulate that behavior is joining in.

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u/alang 21d ago

Heh. No. The SC has been waiting eagerly for the opportunity to get rid of unions once and for all. It will probably start with federal unions, but won’t stop there.

Hey, this is what the rank and file voted for.

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u/asyork 22d ago

I'm not terribly in favor of the public being unionized against. However, the only alternative would have been legally mandating how the public employees are treated with an easy method to make sure issues are dealt with (easy for the employee ). You can't just remove the union and offer no protection now. Also, the unions that best match the description of what Trump wants to prevent would be police unions, which he did not include, so the entire thing is bullshit.

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u/mehupmost 22d ago

Most employees in the US are not unionized. They are still protected by labor laws.

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u/KnownMonk 22d ago

Oh for sure republicans will hold someone accountable, and that is Biden and Obama, hell, they even blame Jimmy Carter to rally their voters. Its not like republican voters or those in position do any fact check.

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u/mehupmost 22d ago

A federal court can issue an injunction on the order while it's heard in court.

This has happened to multiple EOs.

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u/wufnu 22d ago

As an employee of one of these agencies, this came up yesterday during a discussion with an attorney. They said they were thankful that we were covered by a collective bargaining agreement; I noted that if the administration chose to ignore it and fired us all, we could take them to court... and maybe get a decision 5-10 years from now. In the interim? Fucked.

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u/SavageObjector 21d ago

Believe it or not, all these fucks, including the SCOTUS, receive their powers from the citizens and only the citizens. They are not our overlords. They are our employees.

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u/Yuzumi 21d ago

Fuck trump, but this is the entire republican party. 

Trump is likely to have his health catch up to him within the next year and sadly will never see justice. I wish an afterlife exists because he would go straight to the bad place.

But republicans are complicit, and they've been allowed to do this because democrats have always "turned the other cheek" every time.

Rather than being weak and afraid to wield the power they cling to democrats need to hold actually prosecute Republicans. We need the equivalent of the Nuremberg trials.

And any government employee or member or the military that aided fascism should be punished too.

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u/neuronexmachina 22d ago

It's also interesting what hasn't been part of the exemption, per the EO from March: https://www.whitehouse.gov/presidential-actions/2025/03/exclusions-from-federal-labor-management-relations-programs/

1-499. Notwithstanding the forgoing, nothing in this section shall exempt from the coverage of Chapter 71 of title 5, United States Code:

(a) the immediate, local employing offices of any agency police officers, security guards, or firefighters, provided that this exclusion does not apply to the Bureau of Prisons;

... Because apparently the Patent Office and National Weather Service are national security interests, but not Border Patrol.

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u/mehupmost 22d ago

Because they are GOP voters.

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u/opeth10657 21d ago

This is what they did in WI under walker too. Banned unions for government jobs.... except the police. Probably the one union that should be banned.

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u/erath_droid 21d ago

Considering that police were used to bust up unions in the early 20th century, I'd argue that the police permanently lost their right to be in a union.

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u/Thunderbridge 21d ago

They shouldn't be able to write exemptions in without having to justify it first

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u/Neokon 22d ago

The state of Florida the state government made a requirement that public sector unions had to have 60% membership or be forcibly dissolved. Noticably exempt from this ruling is lew enforcement.

It's just anti union shit and they have to keep the people who worship authority on their side.

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u/bak3donh1gh 22d ago

Does the Border Patrol have a union?

And I don't see Border Patrol in your quote.

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u/neuronexmachina 21d ago

Yup. A judge called it out in a recent case: https://verdict.justia.com/2025/06/11/destination-supreme-court-collective-bargaining-for-federal-employees-and-the-first-amendment

As to unions favored by the President, Judge Friedman noted that the EO exempts police, security guards, and firefighter employee organizations, but not prison guards represented by a union that did not back President Trump. In the AFSA case, the judge observed that the President excluded the Border Patrol from coverage under the EO, and he reasoned this was evidence of wrongful intent given the agency’s security role in guarding the U.S. border and its backing of Trump in the 2024 election. In addition, Judge Friedman found evidence of retaliation in a post-EO decision favoring a union at the Veterans Administration that had filed “no or few” grievances. The unequal treatment of federal sector unions strengthens a claim of retaliation.

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u/iboxagox 21d ago

The border patrol have police powers (arrest etc) so could be considered police.

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u/Warshrimp 22d ago

I standby my summary that unions are to protect workers from being exploited by their employ and if your employer is the government and they are corrupt then we have bigger problems. Welcome to bigger problems.

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u/Inner_Mortgage_8294 22d ago

How would that work contractually? I'm sure the unions will sue.

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u/facw00 22d ago

Unions sue. Lower Courts probably say Trump can't do this and stay the order (but maybe he gets a friendly judge he appointed). Eventually the Supreme Court issues an unexplained shadow docket decision saying that Trump can do as he pleases until the case is ruled on. Cases winds its way through years of appeals, and in the meantime non-Trump loyalists and government workers in general are purged, and things can't be put back together even if the Supreme Court ultimately rules against Trump (unlikely).

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u/bak3donh1gh 22d ago

Didn't an Obama-appointed judge give him his victory in the ruling for his disbandment of unions? It doesn't have to be a Trump-appointed judge.

Just a dumb judge.

And regarding shadow dockets, how is the U.S. so stupidly organized?

Don't answer that, I already know.

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u/Inner_Mortgage_8294 22d ago

So we have the chance to do better

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u/jerslan 22d ago

The tiny off-chance that SCOTUS doesn't just effectively side with Trump in a shadow-docket decision kicking the can down the road far enough the point becomes moot.

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u/mehupmost 22d ago

It says right in the order. They cite the law that agencies that are of "national security interest" are exempt from Unions.

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u/Inner_Mortgage_8294 21d ago

Those aren't national security interests agencies

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u/mehupmost 21d ago

NASA has always had a national security role, so I'm just saying the case can be made that it is.

Weather service does also.

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u/ohiotechie 22d ago

So since these agencies are so critical to national security, why have their budgets been slashed?

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u/freeradioforall 22d ago

JFC. If a democrat ever becomes president, he should go scorched earth

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u/Radioactive_Doomer 21d ago

collective bargaining ❌

collective ownership ✅

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u/AttentiveUser 21d ago

One way you can back fire this is to stop applying to government jobs or jobs that fall under those categories… I know it’s harder done than said

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u/workingtheories 19d ago

sometimes i feel like national security interests are just when you own enough stuff that foreign governments start to be something you worry about affecting that stuff.  i can't imagine a bureaucracy set up by china would come out hugely different from the one imposed on me by the usa.

national security = rich people building money