Bureau of Prisons is the latest agency ordered to reinstate union rights

A federal judge in Connecticut last week ordered the U.S. Bureau of Prisons to restore its collective bargaining agreements with the nation’s largest federal employee union, after he found the decision to terminate those contracts last year were likely “entirely pretextual.”

The 32-page preliminary injunction marks the latest in a string of rulings that examined not whether President Trump’s 2025 executive orders banning collective bargaining for most federal workers are legal, but whether the agencies complied with the Administrative Procedure Act’s requirement that decisions be well-reasoned when they implemented the edicts.

At the heart of U.S. District Judge Vernon Oliver’s ruling was the fact that when BOP terminated its contracts with the American Federation of Government Employees’ National Council of Prison Locals in September 2025, it told the union in its decision that it was to conform with Trump’s executive order excluding the agency from federal labor law. But in a message to employees and the public that same day, BOP Director William Marshall stated it was because AFGE was not the “kind of union” he supports.

“Director Marshall posted his message that heavily criticized [the union’s] operations and stated that the ‘whole purpose of ending this contract’ was because the ‘union was an obstacle to progress’ and ‘the current contract has too often slowed or prevented changes,’” Oliver wrote. “The letter did not state that EO 14251 required the termination of the CBA. Nor did it mention the national security rationale underlying the executive order . . . Although an agency may have multiple reasons for its action, it cannot offer an entirely pretextual explanation that is undermined by its own contradictory assertions made the same day.”

Oliver noted a laundry list of actions the agency has taken since the CBA was terminated, mostly to the detriment of employees.

“BOP pressured employees not to take sick leave, and in one instance sent a sick-leave abuse letter to an employee who was in the hospital for kidney surgery,” he wrote. “In another instance, an employee who was recovering from surgery was placed on AWOL (absent without leave) status and threatened with termination if they did not return to work. Terminating the CBA stripped BOP employees of the benefit of union representation in these instances, leaving them to navigate disciplinary proceedings without union support.”

Justice Department attorneys had argued both that the agency was acting on behalf of the president, making the termination exempt from the APA, as well as that the act was “committed to agency discretion,” which also would make it exempt from the APA. But the judge noted that the executive orders, and subsequent guidance from the Office of Personnel Management both allow agencies to “choose” whether to terminate a union contract, making such actions reviewable.

“Defendants took affirmative steps to decide whether and when to terminate the CBA: in accordance with OPM guidance, Director Marshall ‘made the decision’ to terminate the CBA, and defendants had the authority to determine when, precisely, the termination was to occur,” Oliver wrote. “Those decisions by BOP and Director Marshall are reviewable under the APA. Accordingly, defendants’ argument that decision to terminate the CBA is unreviewable because they lacked discretion is contradicted by the record, contradicted by other statements made by the United States, and unavailing to this court.”

In the days following Oliver’s ruling last week, the Bureau of Prison has indicated it is “complying” with his order. But it asked for clarification about whether it would be permitted to submit a new termination notice—something that has drawn the ire of judges in cases involving the Veterans Affairs Department and Transportation Security Administration.

But union officials at at least one correctional facility report that management has yet to comply. AFGE Local 1237 President Aaron McGlothin, whose union represents workers at Federal Correctional Institution Mendota in California, said he is still unable to access the union’s office on agency property, and that the agency continues to refuse employees access to union representation or even acknowledge the union’s status as workers’ exclusive representative.

“How can FCI Mendota management claim to respect the rule of law while refusing to honor a federal judge’s order?” McGlothin said in a statement. “This is a direct attack on the law enforcement officers who keep this institution running and protect the public every day.”

The Bureau of Prisons did not respond to a request for comment.