A bipartisan majority of the U.S. House rejected President Donald Trump’s effort to strip federal workers of union rights. Trump issued an executive order March 27 that withdrew union recognition for as many as 1 million federal workers at dozens of agencies.
On Dec. 11, a bill to overturn that order passed 231 to 195, with the support of 20 Republicans and all 211 Democrats who voted. Supporters included all six Oregon Democrats, while the state’s lone Republican, Cliff Bentz, voted no. Washington’s delegation voted along similar party lines, with the eight Democrats voting yes and the two Republicans voting no.
It was the first time the House of Representatives has voted to overturn a Trump executive order during his second term.
Executive orders are directives about how the executive branch will interpret and implement laws passed by Congress. In this case, Trump used a loophole in the 1978 law that granted some limited union rights for federal workers. That law says federal workers are excluded from union rights if a president determines that their agency or subdivision has “as a primary function intelligence, counterintelligence, investigative, or national security work.” Trump’s order declared that was the case with regard to the Food and Drug Administration, the Environmental Protection Agency, the Bureau of Land Management, and dozens of other agencies.
Unlike the monster 1,000-page bills Congress sometimes passes in the dead of night, H.R. 2550 — the Protect America’s Workforce Act — is just two sentences long: “The Executive order titled ‘Exclusions from Federal Labor-Management Relations Programs,’ issued on March 27, 2025, shall have no force or effect and no federal funds may be obligated or expended to carry out such executive order. Any collective bargaining agreement in effect as of March 26, 2025, between any executive branch federal agency and any labor organization that is an exclusive representative of federal employees shall have full force and effect through the stated term of the applicable agreement.”
House Republican leaders including Speaker Mike Johnson (R-La.) and House Oversight Committee Chair James Comer (R-Ky.) refused to give the bill a hearing or schedule a vote, but supporters had majority support in the House, so they used a “discharge petition” — a procedure to force a bill out of committee and onto the floor for a vote if a majority of the House signs it.
“We commend the Republicans and Democrats who stood with workers and voted to reverse the single largest act of union-busting in American history,” said AFL-CIO President Liz Shuler in a press statement responding to the passage.
The Protect America’s Workforce Act now moves to the Senate, where 49 senators have signed on to a companion bill, S.2837 — including including two Republicans, Susan Collins (R-Maine) and Lisa Murkowski (R-Alaska). To pass it will need support from 11 other Republicans to overcome the Senate’s self-imposed 60-vote filibuster threshold, and it will need Republican leadership to call it up for a vote.
