in effect
This is an executive order (EO 14343, signed August 28, 2025) that removes additional federal agencies and agency units from coverage under the federal labor-management relations program — the law (Chapter 71 of Title 5, U.S. Code) that gives most federal employees the right to form and join unions and bargain collectively. The President invoked a statutory authority that allows such exclusions when an agency’s primary function involves intelligence, counterintelligence, investigative, or national security work.
Several agencies and units are newly removed from collective bargaining coverage: Bureau of Reclamation units primarily responsible for hydropower facility operations; the International Trade Administration; the Patent and Trademark Office (Commissioner for Patents and subordinate units); two National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration subdivisions (the National Environmental Satellite, Data, and Information Service and the National Weather Service); NASA in its entirety; and the U.S. Agency for Global Media. The order also revises an older 1979 executive order (EO 12171) to reflect these updated exclusions. Additionally, it extends by 15 days the deadline for the Secretaries of Defense and Veterans Affairs to issue their own exclusion orders under a prior March 2025 executive order (EO 14251).
Federal employees working in the newly listed agencies and units lose access to the federal collective bargaining framework — meaning they can no longer form or be represented by unions under that law for purposes of negotiating working conditions with their agencies. Existing unions or bargaining units representing workers in those agencies would no longer have legal standing under Chapter 71 to represent those employees.