FLRA (2-1) Continues Effort to Bust Immigration Judges Union

Erich Wagner, GovExec, Jan. 24, 2022

"The Republican majority on the Federal Labor Relations Authority last week issued an “unprecedented” decision to move forward with busting a union of immigration judges, despite the fact that both the union and management at the Justice Department have asked the decision to be withdrawn. In a 2-1 decision, the FLRA rejected requests by both the Justice Department’s Executive Office of Immigration Review and the National Association of Immigration Judges to throw out its controversial November 2020 decision decertifying the union. ... Mimi Tsankov, president of the National Association of Immigration Judges, said she was outraged at the decision, specifically because it overrules not only labor law precedent, but the wishes of all parties involved in the case. She said the union will continue to fight to overturn the ruling and is deliberating over their next steps in the matter. ... Robert Tobias, distinguished practitioner in residence at American University’s Key Leadership Program and a former president of the National Treasury Employees Union, said he has never seen a case like this in federal labor law. “It makes no sense from every single perspective that I look at it,” he said. “It should be moot. It should have been moot. But the regional director also should have followed the decision. But the decision itself says nothing and provides no explanation of [members’] reasoning. It’s never happened before, to my knowledge.” ... Matt Biggs, national president of the International Federation of Technical and Professional Employees, whose federation includes the judges’ union, said ... "allowing the FLRA to continue to have a Trump majority has led to the ability of those two Trump appointees to put out a decision based not on the law, but their ideology and disdain for the unions in the federal sector.” "