Federal Employee Unions

Federal workers won the right to join unions and petition Congress in the Lloyd-La Follette Act of 1912, but for decades they had no right to bargain. President John Kennedy's Executive Order 10988 of January 17, 1962, first allowed collective bargaining in federal agencies, and the Civil Service Reform Act of 1978 put the system into law as the Federal Service Labor-Management Relations Statute, administered by the Federal Labor Relations Authority. The largest unions include the American Federation of Government Employees, the National Treasury Employees Union, and the National Federation of Federal Employees.

Unions can negotiate contracts with agencies over working conditions such as schedules, telework, safety, and procedures for discipline and grievances, but by law they cannot bargain over wages or benefits, which Congress sets, and they cannot strike. Union membership is voluntary, and nonmembers in a bargaining unit cannot be required to pay dues, though unions must represent them. About 1 million federal employees are covered by union contracts, while a smaller share are dues-paying members. The ban on strikes was enforced dramatically in August 1981, when President Ronald Reagan fired more than 11,000 striking air traffic controllers.

The law allows the President to exclude agencies whose primary work is national security or intelligence from collective bargaining. On March 27, 2025, an executive order used that authority to end bargaining at agencies employing roughly two-thirds of the unionized workforce, and later orders added more, prompting lawsuits from unions, and appeals courts allowed the orders to take effect while litigation continued. Supporters said the change let agencies manage their workforce and remove poor performers more quickly, while critics said it was an unprecedented use of the national security exemption to strip workers of rights granted by Congress.