Unions sue to block Trump from eliminating labor mediation agency

By Daniel Wiessner

April 14 (Reuters) - More than a dozen major unions filed a lawsuit on Monday seeking to block the administration of President Donald Trump from shutting down a federal agency that mediates labor disputes in the public and private sectors.

The unions in a complaint filed in Manhattan federal court said that efforts to dismantle the Federal Mediation and Conciliation Service violate Congress' constitutional powers to create or dissolve federal agencies.

Trump in a March executive order directed that the FMCS and six other agencies be reduced "to the minimum presence and function required by law.”

Since then, more than 90% of the mediation service's employees have been placed on administrative leave and the agency has closed all of its field offices, leaving a skeleton staff in Washington, the unions said in the lawsuit.

"Without the services of FMCS, Plaintiffs are left in the lurch, often working under expired contracts or no contracts, and strikes or lockouts are much more likely," they said.

The White House and the FMCS did not immediately respond to requests for comment. In a statement last month, the agency said it was "still operational and performing our statutory functions of collective bargaining mediation work in the private and federal sectors."

The plaintiffs include the American Federation of Government Employees, which represents more than 800,000 federal workers, the American Federation of Teachers and the AFL-CIO.

The mediation service was created in 1947 and primarily works to broker settlements in collective bargaining disputes through mediation and arbitration.

Private-sector employers must notify the agency if they intend to terminate or modify a union contract, and the FMCS then decides whether to intervene and offer mediation services. The agency is required to intervene in cases involving potential work stoppages in healthcare settings and the U.S. Postal Service.

In the federal sector, the use of the agency's services is voluntary and labor disputes more often go to a different agency, the Federal Labor Relations Authority. Trump in March fired a Democratic member of that agency, but she was reinstated by a federal judge.

The FMCS receives roughly 15,000 notices from employers each year and in 2024 supplied about 10,000 arbitrator panels and appointed more than 4,000 arbitrators to hear cases, according to the lawsuit filed on Monday.

The unions claim that Trump had no power to order that the agency be effectively shuttered, and that doing so defied the power of Congress to create agencies, charge them with specific functions and provide funding to carry out their missions.

The lawsuit seeks preliminary and permanent injunctions barring the FMCS from implementing Trump's executive order and requiring the agency to reinstate employees and resume mediation services.

The case is American Federation of Teachers v. Goldstein, U.S. District Court for the Southern District of New York, No. 1:25-cv-3072.

For the unions: Elisabeth Oppenheimer and Cole Hanzlicek of Bredhoff & Kaiser

For the government: Not yet available

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