Many persons have been wondering about their federal and state employment and collective bargaining rights. Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson has a long history of issuing fair and balanced judicial decisions including those that effect employees’ rights and collective bargaining. Prior to her being appointed to the US Supreme Court, Judge Jackson had to decide in AFGE whether a President’s Orders were legitimate exercises of his authority. Part I on AFGE, may be read here for continuity. Her long history of issuing decisions that were both fair and balanced, was again displayed in this matter.
In AFGE, August 25, 2018, Judge Jackson found that certain provisions of the President’s Orders plainly furthered Trump’s intention to restrict the scope and effectiveness of federal employees' right to collective bargaining.
Yet in her fair and balanced opinion, Judge Jackson held that both sides' motions for summary judgment must be granted in part and denied in part. She ordered that the Court enjoin the President's subordinates within the Executive Branch to disregard certain but not all of the sections of the Orders because these directives undermined federal employees' right to bargain collectively as protected by the FSLMRS. She held that as a result, the President must be deemed to have exceeded his executive authority in issuing them.
Judge Jackson found that many but not all of the challenged provisions of the President's Orders constituted an improper exercise of his statutory authority to regulate federal employees' labor relations because they conflicted with the right to good-faith collective bargaining that the FSLMRS seeks to protect. However, the Orders that the President issued on May 25, 2018, would not be invalidated in total, because of the President's clear intent that any invalid provisions within these orders should be severable from the rest.
Because Judge Jackson ruled that some of the Union’s challenged provisions of the Orders were not invalid, these provisions remained, along with the unchallenged parts of the Orders. In her balanced opinion, Judge Jackson stated in her Conclusion as follows:
"In their cross-motion for summary judgment, Defendants assert that the fact that the President's policy choices about how best to guide the conduct of employees in the Executive Branch do not align with Plaintiffs' own policy preferences is not a proper basis for seeking judicial review. This is undoubtedly true. But the core claim that the Unions make in the context of the instant case is that the President's policy choices as reflected in the challenged executive orders do not align with the policy preferences of Congress, and in this Court's view, that contention is undoubtedly true as well.
In short, there is no dispute that the principal mission of the FSLMRS is to protect the collective bargaining rights of federal workers, based on Congress's clear and unequivocal finding that labor organizations and collective bargaining in the civil service are in the public interest."... Congress did not intend for union challenges to the validity of executive orders that threaten such collective bargaining rights to be funneled to the FLRA. Upon exercising its subject-matter jurisdiction over the ripe claims that the Unions bring here, this Court has concluded that many of the challenged provisions of the Orders at issue here effectively reduce the scope of the right to bargain collectively as Congress has crafted it, or impair the ability of agency officials to bargain in good faith as Congress has directed, and therefore cannot be sustained.
As a result, and as set forth in the accompanying Order, this Court will declare the following provisions invalid, and will enjoin the President's subordinates from implementing or giving effect to: Executive Order 13,836 §§ 5(a), 5(e), 6; Executive Order 13,837 §§ 3(a), 4(a), 4(b); and Executive Order 13,839 §§ 3, 4(a), 4(c). What remains—Executive Order 13,836 § 5(c); Executive Order 13,837 §§ 2(j), 4(c); and Executive Order 13,839 §§ 2(b), 2(c), 4(b)(iii), 7—are the few challenged directives that have neither
reduced the scope of protected collective bargaining] rights nor hampered good faith bargaining, and, thus, cannot be said to conflict with the FSLMRS.
Furthermore, given these conclusions, the parties' various cross-motions for summary judgment are GRANTED IN PART AND DENIED IN PART."
It is hopeful for furtherance of employee rights, that Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson will continue her history of balanced and fair decisions.
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