The Solidarity Docket
Week of March 26, 2026
This week's docket is heavy. The VA is defying a court order in plain sight. The MSPB issued a precedential decision that threatens civil service protections for broad categories of federal workers. The FLRA published sweeping new rules restructuring union representation proceedings without public notice or comment. The DHS shutdown endures its seventh week with no resolution. And federal employee morale, measured for the first time since OPM canceled its required annual survey, has collapsed to historic lows.
VA Says Court Order Requires It to Reinstate Union Contract, Not Follow It
The Department of Veterans Affairs is taking the position that Judge Melissa DuBose's March 13 preliminary injunction ordering reinstatement of AFGE's Master Collective Bargaining Agreement does not require the VA to actually comply with any of its terms.
In a filing this week, the VA argued that the court's order requires only that the contract exist on paper. If AFGE believes the VA is violating specific contract provisions, the union must file individual grievances. The problem: the VA is simultaneously refusing to participate in grievance and arbitration proceedings.
On March 19, the VA sent a letter to an arbitrator arguing that pending arbitrations “should continue to be held in abeyance” until the underlying litigation concludes. AFGE has documented that the VA denied employees union representation during disciplinary proceedings and withheld CBA-mandated paid parental leave following the court's order.
AFGE says that, for the 300,000-plus VA employees covered by the Master CBA, nothing has changed since the injunction issued. The VA's position is that no forum, not the court and not the grievance process, can require it to follow the contract while litigation continues.
Judge DuBose issued a clarification order on March 23 confirming that the injunction requires reinstatement of the Master CBA as written. Her written response to the VA's arguments was notably pointed. AFGE's motion to enforce remains pending before the court.
Full reporting is at Government Executive.
MSPB Says It Lacks Jurisdiction Over Immigration Judge Terminations, Judges Appeal
On March 20, the Merit Systems Protection Board issued a precedential decision in Jackler and Jaroch v. Department of Justice(2026 MSPB 3), dismissing the appeals of two DOJ immigration judges fired in February 2025. The Board held it lacks jurisdiction because the Attorney General exercised Article II constitutional removal authority.
The Board's core holdings: immigration judges qualify as “inferior officers” under the Constitution, not merely employees; and as inferior officers who exercise significant adjudicative and policymaking authority, including the power to issue decisions that can become the final order of the United States, they fall outside the narrow exception that permits removal restrictions for officers with only limited duties and no policymaking authority. Because they fall outside that exception, 5 U.S.C. section 7513's civil service removal protections cannot constitutionally apply to them, and the Board has no jurisdiction to review their terminations.
The Board had been holding similar cases in abeyance pending this decision. The administration can now cite this ruling to argue that other categories of federal workers classified as “inferior officers” are removable at will with no MSPB review. The attorneys for the fired judges confirmed they filed an appeal at the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit on March 23.
Readers following last week's item on Cathy Harris's Supreme Court petition should note: the two-member Board that issued this decision consists entirely of Republican appointees. Harris, the Democratic member, was fired by President Trump in February 2025. Her petition argues that the MSPB is a purely adjudicative body whose members cannot be removed at will. The Board she was removed from has now issued a decision holding that when the President invokes Article II, the Board must stand down. The two cases together define the current outer edges of the Article II removal fight, and both remain unresolved.
FLRA Upends Union Representation Proceedings, Bypasses Public Comment
On March 24, the Federal Labor Relations Authority published two notices in the Federal Register that together represent the most significant restructuring of union representation case processing in the agency's 43-year history. Both take effect April 23, 2026.
Since 1983, Regional Directors, career civil servants supervised by the General Counsel, have had delegated authority to handle representation proceedings: determining appropriate bargaining units, directing elections, and certifying results. Parties who disagreed could appeal to the Authority.
Under the new rules, the Authority itself now makes all final decisions in the first instance. Regional Directors continue to process petitions and conduct hearings, but only under the Authority's direct supervision. The appeal process is eliminated because there is nowhere left to appeal.
The practical consequence is that political appointees, not career civil servants, serve as the initial decision-makers in every union representation case. The current Authority is controlled by a Republican majority following President Trump's legally contested removal of Democratic member Susan Tsui Grundmann in February 2025.
The FLRA bypassed notice-and-comment rulemaking by characterizing the changes as procedural and organizational rather than substantive. That characterization is likely to face challenge. The rules determine who has authority to decide whether a bargaining unit is appropriate, whether an election was valid, and whether a union is certified to represent its members. Those are consequential determinations affecting the legal rights of federal employees and unions in every representation proceeding going forward.
The lone dissenter, Member Anne Wagner, did not object to the direction of the changes. She objected to the process. She wrote that stakeholders deserve an opportunity to comment before changes of this magnitude take effect and noted that the FLRA has not yet determined internally how cases will actually be processed under the new structure. Using interim final rulemaking, she wrote, “effectively tells our stakeholders that, although we welcome their comments, we will not necessarily consider them.”
The comment period closes April 23, the same day the rules take effect. Comments may be submitted to FedRegComments@flra.gov with the subject line “Representation Proceedings.”
DHS Shutdown Enters Week Seven: TSA Callouts Hit New High
The partial DHS shutdown is now in its seventh week with no resolution in sight. On March 24, TSA officer callout rates reached their highest point since the shutdown began February 14. Nearly 3,500 officers, approximately 11.8% of the scheduled nationwide workforce, missed shifts. Callout rates exceeded 40% at several major airports, including Atlanta (41.5%) and New Orleans (42.3%). More than 400 TSA officers have quit since the shutdown began.
In response, DHS deployed ICE officers to airports including Hartsfield-Jackson Atlanta International Airport, where security wait times reached four hours, to assist with non-screening duties. TSA officers are legally required to work without pay during a shutdown under federal law.
The Senate failed again this week to advance a DHS funding measure. No meeting between the President and Senate leadership is currently scheduled.
Federal Employee Morale Collapses to Historic Lows
The Partnership for Public Service, a nonpartisan organization and partner of Rise Up, released the results of its Public Service Viewpoint Survey this week. The survey, based on responses from more than 11,000 current federal employees, was designed to fill the gap left when OPM canceled the statutorily required 2025 Federal Employee Viewpoint Survey.
The government-wide Employee Engagement and Satisfaction Index score was 32 out of 100. Prior to 2025, even poorly rated agencies rarely scored below 50.
Only 7.5% of respondents said political leaders at their agencies generate high levels of motivation.
Only 22.5% said they felt confident they could report a suspected legal violation without retaliation.
At HHS, just 2.6% of employees said Secretary Kennedy's political team generates high levels of motivation, placing HHS third from last among large agencies.
The average large agency score dropped from approximately 70 in 2024 to approximately 29.5 in 2025.
The full survey report is available through the Partnership for Public Service.
Interior Department Recalls Employees It Paid to Take a Year Off
Government Executive reported this week that Interior Department employees placed on paid administrative leave in February 2025 because their jobs involved DEI and environmental justice work have been recalled to duty, more than a year later, in reassigned roles.
Approximately three dozen employees were affected. They were paid throughout the period and prohibited from performing any official duties. Interior recalled them through a management-directed reassignment memo stating that the action was taken to promote the efficiency of the service. The department declined to explain why it did not implement the RIFs OPM directed in January 2025.
The recalled employees return to a restructured department. Interior has consolidated human resources and administrative functions into Secretary Doug Burgum's office. Last week, Interior's human resources chief sent a memo to staff asking them to report any DEI activities still taking place within the agency.
HHS Restricts Telework as Reasonable Accommodation; Disabled Veterans Running Out of Options
HHS implemented a policy requiring all reasonable accommodation requests, including interim telework accommodations, to be approved at the assistant secretary level or above. The policy has created a backlog of more than 3,000 pending requests expected to take six to eight months to process. Employees are being denied interim telework accommodations while their requests are pending.
Local AFGE leadership wrote to agency leadership that CDC employees have experienced acute medical events after losing their accommodations, that service-disabled veterans have had VA physicians' medical documentation overridden by HHS administrators, and that several employees have been classified as AWOL as a result of disabilities that make in-person attendance impossible.
OPM has advised agencies not to take a blanket approach to rescinding existing accommodations. The CDC did not respond to a request for comment.
Full reporting is at Federal News Network.
Trump Makes USPS Board Nominations
Trump nominated three additional individuals to the USPS Board of Governors this week: Robert Steffens of Texas, Jeffrey Brodsky and William Gallo, both of Florida. All are Republicans. The National Association of Letter Carriers said it is largely unfamiliar with the nominees and noted that the Senate has traditionally advanced postal nominees in bipartisan pairs. Five vacancies remain on the board. The USPS faces the prospect of exhausting operating funds as early as fall 2026.
Litigation Roundup
And finally, we have many things happening across the dozens of lawsuits filed by the Trump Administration’s sweeping federal workforce changes, here are some highlights from our Litigation Tracker.
USAGM reinstatement: The government filed a notice of appeal of Judge Lamberth's March 17 reinstatement order on March 19 and moved for a partial stay. On March 20, Judge Lamberth denied the stay but vacated the March 23 reinstatement deadline. The court ordered the government to file regular compliance updates. The reinstatement order remains in force; the timeline is now court-supervised. The appeal is pending in the D.C. Circuit.
NIOSH/National Nurses United v. Kennedy: On March 23, plaintiffs filed a voluntary dismissal after the government reversed the actions challenged in the case. The court dismissed without prejudice. This is one of the few cases in the current wave resolved by the government reversing course rather than by court order.
AFL-CIO v. Trump (D.D.C.): On March 23, the court ordered the case held in abeyance pending the D.C. Circuit's resolution of the consolidated NTEU, AFSA, and FEA cases. This continues the pattern of district courts pausing collective bargaining cases while the D.C. Circuit works through the jurisdictional questions.
Upcoming: Oral argument in AFSA v. Trump is scheduled for April 23 in the D.C. Circuit. Oral argument on AFGE's preliminary injunction motion in National Council of Prison Locals v. Bureau of Prisons has been continued to April 30.
In Solidarity,
Suzanne Summerlin
General Counsel Rise Up: Federal Workers Legal Defense Networ
