Background
The Department of Veterans Affairs and its Secretary terminated a collective bargaining agreement with federal employee unions, alleging the President had excluded the agency from federal labor-management relations statutes for national security reasons. The unions sued, alleging the termination violated the Administrative Procedure Act and the First Amendment. The District Court for the District of Rhode Island granted a preliminary injunction reinstating the agreement and later issued an enforcement order requiring the government to comply with the agreement’s terms and process pending grievances. The government appealed and sought a stay of both orders.
The court’s reasoning
The court applied the four-factor test from Nken v. Holder to evaluate the stay motions. Regarding the preliminary injunction, the court found the government failed to make a strong showing of likelihood of success because it raised new arguments about the agreement’s inoperability that were not presented below and failed to adequately challenge the district court’s factual findings regarding retaliatory motive. Consequently, the court denied the stay of the preliminary injunction. Regarding the enforcement order, the court found the government likely to succeed on the merits of its argument that the district court lacked jurisdiction to order specific performance of the contract’s terms. Therefore, the court granted a partial stay of the enforcement order’s compliance directive while denying the stay of the order rejecting the re-termination.
What it means going forward
The collective bargaining agreement remains in effect and must be reinstated. However, the government is temporarily relieved of the obligation to process pending grievances and arbitrations under the agreement pending further appellate review of the district court’s enforcement authority.