<div class="css-s99gbd StoryBodyCompanionColumn" data-testid="companionColumn-0"><div class="css-53u6y8"><p class="css-at9mc1 evys1bk0">A group of federal employee unions filed a lawsuit seeking to stop the <a class="css-yywogo" href="https://www.nytimes.com/2025/03/28/us/politics/trump-unions-executive-order.html" title="">Trump administration’s efforts to strip union representation</a> from about one million federal workers, arguing that President Trump had exceeded his constitutional authority and violated the unions’ rights.</p><p class="css-at9mc1 evys1bk0">The complaint, filed late Thursday night in federal court in Oakland, Calif., is the latest development in the unions’ <a class="css-yywogo" href="https://www.nytimes.com/2025/03/29/us/politics/federal-worker-unions-doge.html" title="">escalating battle</a> with the administration over its attempts to slash the federal work force and roll back the protections afforded to the civil service employees. Unions representing government workers have repeatedly sued over the efforts to cut jobs and dismantle offices and agencies, winning at least temporary reprieves in some of those cases.</p><p class="css-at9mc1 evys1bk0">Last week, Mr. Trump signed an executive order designating employees of about two dozen agencies as central to “national security missions,” a move explicitly designed to exclude them from federal unions, which the administration said were “hostile” to his agenda.</p><p class="css-at9mc1 evys1bk0">The executive order was accompanied by a lawsuit in federal court in Texas, filed by the administration, seeking to allow federal agencies to cancel collective bargaining agreements. That would strip the employees of union protection and the unions of millions of dollars in dues.</p></div><aside aria-label="companion column" class="css-ew4tgv"></aside></div><div data-testid="Dropzone-1"></div><div class="css-s99gbd StoryBodyCompanionColumn" data-testid="companionColumn-1"><div class="css-53u6y8"><p class="css-at9mc1 evys1bk0">Officials at the American Federation of Government Employees, the largest federal union, which filed the countersuit on Friday, said the president’s move was among the most aggressive they had seen out of the White House so far, one that threatened collective bargaining rights across the work force. The A.F.G.E. alone represents 800,000 workers.</p><p class="css-at9mc1 evys1bk0">The lawsuit called the order an act of retaliation against the union for pushing back against “both his agenda to decimate the federal work force and his broader agenda to fundamentally restructure the federal government through expansive and unprecedented exercises of executive authority.”</p><p class="css-at9mc1 evys1bk0">Since January, unions have filed an array of lawsuits challenging an array of executive orders and actions, including the February firing of some 25,000 probational employees.</p><p class="css-at9mc1 evys1bk0">The administration said the move to eliminate union representation was necessary to protect national security and advance Mr. Trump’s agenda.</p></div><aside aria-label="companion column" class="css-ew4tgv"></aside></div>