Judge Blocks Trump Administration From Nixing Collective Bargaining For Most Federal Employees

A federal judge on Friday temporarily blocked the Trump administration from implementing an executive order that a labor union says would cancel collective bargaining rights for hundreds of thousands of federal employees.

U.S. District Judge Paul Friedman ruled that a key part of President Donald Trump's March 27 order can't be enforced at roughly three dozen agencies and departments where employees are represented by the National Treasury Employees Union.

The union, which represents nearly 160,000 federal government employees workers, sued to challenge Trump's order. The union said it would lose more than half of its revenue and over two-thirds of its membership if the judge denied its request for a preliminary injunction.

Friedman said he would issue an opinion in several days to explain his two-page order . The ruling isn't the final word in the lawsuit. He gave the attorneys until May 2 to submit a proposal for how the case should proceed.

Union president Doreen Greenwald said the judge's order is "a victory for federal employees, their union rights and the American people they serve."