A federal judge Wednesday appeared poised to grant a preliminary injunction for a union representing over 100,000 federal workers to pause an executive order that stripped its members of their collective bargaining rights.

Judge Paul Friedman of US District Court for the District of Columbia seemed unconvinced by arguments from Department of Justice attorneys that President Donald Trump retains the exclusive right to determine which executive agencies fall under federal labor protections during a hearing Wednesday.

Trump issued an executive order on March 27, declaring that more than 40 agencies and sub-agencies serve primarily a “national security” purpose, rendering them outside of the statute guaranteeing unionization and collective bargaining rights for civil servants.

The order included the departments of State, Defense, and Justice. Trump’s move rests on a part of US law that empowers the president to prohibit employees who are “primarily” engaged in national security work from organizing.

The National Treasury Employees Union sued the administration in DC district court, seeking a preliminary injunction to enjoin the executive order and restore bargaining rights and dues collections for the union. The NTEU represents about two-thirds of the 100,000-person IRS workforce and workers in dozens of other agencies.

The union’s attorneys said it had lost over $2 million in uncollected dues since the executive order was issued and that the erasure of 100,000 members would devastate it financially.

“They won’t bargain with us. They won’t meet with us,” Paras Shah, NTEU’s deputy general counsel, said during the hearing Wednesday. “We’re losing chances to advocate for our workers at a time when they are under unprecedented attack, as agencies prepare for large scale reductions in force.”

DOJ attorney Emily Hall asserted during the hearing Wednesday that the president has full authority to declare that agencies’ primary function is to serve national security interests, and should therefore be ineligible to collectively bargain.

“Unions, at times, may obstruct agency management and the president from making changes they deem necessary to promote national security,” she said. “That’s precisely the determination that the president is tasked with making under the statute—whether collective bargaining and terms of a CBA are at direct odds with national security.”

Friedman pushed back against Hall, urging her to define the national security purposes for the Federal Emergency Management Agency, the National Institutes of Health, and her department—the DOJ’s civil division—all of which were included in Trump’s executive order.

“The term ‘primary’ has to have some meaning, not just whatever the president says it is,” Friedman said.

The case is National Treasury Employees Union v. Trump, D.D.C., No. 1:25-cv-00935, hearing held 4/23/25.