in effect
This is Executive Order 14251, signed March 27, 2025, using presidential authority under 5 U.S.C. 7103(b)(1) and 22 U.S.C. 4103(b). It amends an existing 1979 order (Executive Order 12171) to remove a large set of federal agencies and agency subdivisions from federal labor-management relations programs — the system that lets covered federal employees unionize and bargain collectively. The order justifies these removals on national-security grounds.
It declares that the listed agencies have national-security-related work as a primary function and that collective-bargaining law cannot be applied to them consistently with national security, then excludes them from coverage under Chapter 71 of Title 5 (and, for Foreign Service subdivisions, Subchapter X of Chapter 52 of Title 22). The newly excluded bodies include most or part of the Departments of State, Defense, Treasury (except the Bureau of Engraving and Printing), Veterans Affairs, Justice, plus named units within Homeland Security, HHS, Interior, Energy, Agriculture, Commerce, and standalone agencies like the EPA, USAID, NRC, NSF, FCC, and GSA. Once an affected collective-bargaining agreement ends, agency heads must reassign employees who did union work back to full agency duties and drop pending grievance, arbitration, and unfair-labor-practice cases involving those employees. The order sets two deadlines: the Secretaries of Defense and Veterans Affairs may reverse an exclusion for a subdivision only if they certify to the President and publish that certification in the Federal Register within 15 days, and every agency head with covered employees must send the President a report identifying additional national-security subdivisions within 30 days. It also delegates authority to the Secretary of Transportation to exclude Department of Transportation units, including the FAA.
Federal civil-service and Foreign Service employees at the listed agencies and subdivisions lose the right to collective bargaining and union representation under these statutes, and the unions representing them lose those bargaining relationships and pending cases. The order carves out some exceptions that stay covered — for example, the immediate local offices of agency police officers, security guards, and firefighters (but not the Bureau of Prisons), and certain Marshals Service units. The order states it creates no legal rights enforceable in court and is to be carried out consistent with existing law and available funding.