Trump to sign memo lifting Biden’s last-minute collective bargaining agreements
FIRST ON FOX: President Donald Trump is expected to sign a memo Friday to lift the collective bargaining agreements former President Joe Biden put into effect before leaving office, Fox News Digital has learned.
The president’s memo will direct federal agencies to reject last-minute collective bargaining agreements issued by the Biden administration, which White House officials said were designed to “constrain” the Trump administration from reforming the government.
The memo prohibits agencies from making new collective bargaining agreements during the final 30 days of a president’s term. It also directs agency heads to disapprove any collective bargaining agreements that Biden put through during the final 30 days of his term.
The White House said collective bargaining agreements enacted before that time period will remain in effect while the Trump administration “negotiates a better deal for the American people.”
Biden’s Social Security Administration Commissioner Martin O’Malley in December 2024 came to an agreement with the American Federation of Government Employees guaranteeing that the agency’s 42,000 employees would not have to come into the office during the Trump administration.
The White House told Fox News Digital that the new policy “ensures the American people get the policies they voted for, instead of being stuck with the wasteful and ineffective Biden policies rejected at the ballot box.”
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“The outgoing Biden administration negotiated lame-duck, multi-year collective bargaining agreements—during the week before the inauguration—in an attempt to tie the incoming Trump administration’s hands,” a White House fact sheet on the memo obtained by Fox News Digital states.
The White House pointed to the Biden administration’s Department of Education’s agreement that prohibited the return of remote employees and agreements for the Biden Small Business Administration and Federal Trade Commission.
“These CBAs attempt to prevent President Trump from implementing his promises to the American people, such as returning Federal employees to the office to make government operate more efficiently,” the fact sheet states. “President Biden’s term of office ended on January 20th. Under this memorandum, he and future Presidents cannot govern agencies after leaving office by locking in last-minute CBAs.”
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The president’s new memo also is aimed to ensure that federal government agencies operate under similar rules as private sector unions and employers.
The memo comes after the White House Office of Personnel Management (OPM) directed agency and department heads to notify employees by the new return to in-person work order. That order required employees to work full-time in the office unless excused due to disability or qualifying medical conditions.
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And this week, OPM sent emails to the full federal workforce offering the option of resignation with full pay and benefits until Sept. 30 if they do not want to return to the office. Those workers have until Feb. 6 to decide.
The federal workers that did not get that option work as postal workers, military immigration officials, some national security officials, and any positions agencies decide to carve out.