Reconsider whether public-sector unions should exist
What the document says“Congress should also consider whether public-sector unions are appropriate in the first place.”
Framed as a question for Congress to consider rather than a specific proposal: the chapter says a bipartisan consensus until the middle of the 20th century held that public-sector unions were incompatible with constitutional government, and that after half a century it is hard to avoid the same conclusion.
What the document actually says“Congress should also consider whether public-sector unions are appropriate in the first place.”
Congress should also ask a bigger question. Should workers in the government have unions at all?
The book asks Congress a much bigger question. It asks whether federal workers should have unions at all. It does not lay out a plan for this. It says leaders long ago thought unions were a bad fit for government.
Exclusions From Federal Labor-Management Relations Programs
2025-03-27 · 90 FR 14553
Whether this order answers the chapter's question is a reading, not a fact. The chapter put the question to Congress and proposed no executive action on it; this is executive action, and it removes coverage from named agencies rather than deciding the general question. Recorded here because readers reasonably connect the two, and left unresolved.
The chapter asked Congress to weigh whether these unions should exist. It asked for no act by the President. This order is such an act. It covers only named agencies. Whether it answers the chapter's question is a reading, left open here.
2 agency rules
- Requests for Arbitration PanelsFederal Mediation and Conciliation Service · August 4, 2026
- Requests for Arbitration PanelsFederal Mediation and Conciliation Service · August 28, 2026
Each of these names the order above in its own summary, preamble or filing. That is a fact about the document, not a finding that it carries out this proposal: it is one step further away than the order is, and what it does about the proposal is a reading nobody has made here.