Federal Judge Overturns Trump Executive Order Restrictions – Donald Goes Full Psycho

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The Trump administration hasn’t exactly had it easy when facing challenges to policy proposals in court. This week, yet another presidential mandate (mostly) met its end in a federal court — for now, at least. Judge Ketanji Brown Jackson struck down most of the strangleholds on government employee unions that President Donald Trump included in executive orders that he signed earlier this year.

The orders were marketed as making it easier for federal agencies to fire employees. Trump has marketed the shift in the past as necessary for reform in specific contexts like the Veterans Administration. His plan, enacted in May via executive order, pushed for changes like a decrease in the time employees up for termination can try and prove their worth before being fired. Whereas the cap previously stood at 120 days, the president wanted it down to just 30 days.

Under the change, employees also faced fewer options for appealing the poor performance evaluations that could leave them up for firing in the first place. Other shifts included slashing the amount of time that employees can spend on “union business” while on the job, cutting it down to no more than 25 percent of their total time on the clock.

To be sure, Trump’s executive orders didn’t themselves enact these changes. Instead, the orders pushed federal agencies to negotiate for the changes, since federal law requires that most such changes not be instituted unilaterally, via executive power. Although whoever wrote up the orders sought to get around that law, Judge Jackson ruled this week that the orders were out of line, anyway.

She said that the orders “impair the ability of agency officials to keep an open mind, and to participate fully in give-and-take discussions, during collective bargaining negotiations.”

Thus — for now — they’ve mostly been completely overturned. Some of the few points she left intact include direction for what to do in the case of a breakdown in union negotiations.

Government employee union representatives were, of course, pleased with the outcome.

National Association of Government Employees official Sarah Suszczyk commented:

‘We are very pleased that the court agreed that the president far exceeded his authority, and that the apolitical career federal work force shall be protected from these illegal, politically motivated executive orders.’

Millions of people work for the federal government, all of whom stood to be affected by the changes Trump sought.

As union official Loni Schultz put it:

‘Employees are really frightened. They’re frightened about losing jobs. They have house payments, car payments, child care.’

The changes Trump sought had begun to be implemented across the government in July.

The moves were part of the broad method in which the Trump administration has undercut the working class in the United States. Trump has repeatedly threatened the very interests he’s claimed intent on protecting through harsh tariffs on many imported goods. In the aftermath of those tariffs, trade wars have ensued that leave some American workers struggling.

You’d be hard-pressed to find an example of the Trump administration actually relenting, though. As The Times notes, they could appeal Judge Jackson’s decision. They did not immediately respond to the publication’s request for comment.

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