NEW YORK — According to the New York Times, a federal judge has overturned one of President Bush’s earliest executive orders, which required federal contractors to post notices telling workers they did not have to join unions.
The order also required the notices to inform workers that they do not have to pay that part of their union fees used for politics. When President Bush issued the order last February, unions feared it would weaken them and reduce the amount of money going into their campaign coffers.
In a decision dated Jan. 2, Judge Henry H. Kennedy Jr. of Federal Disrict Court in Washington ruled that Mr. Bush had illegally used federal procurement regulations to supersede federal labor laws.
Previous court decisions, Judge Kennedy wrote, made clear that federal and state regulators were prohibited from setting their own standards for conduct that is regulated by the National Labor Relations Act, the 1935 law that oversees the nation’s system of labor relations.
Federal contractors were just starting to follow the order because the Labor Department was only now setting rules about it. Bush administration officials said they would appeal Judge Kennedy’s decision.
“We’re disappointed with the ruling,” said Sue Hensley, communications director at the Labor Department. “We plan to appeal on behalf of employees, who deserve to know their rights.”
Mr. Bush’s father had issued a similar order during his term as president, but President Bill Clinton scrapped it as one of his first acts in office. After organized labor campaigned vigorously for Al Gore in the 2000 presidential campaign, many Republicans urged President Bush to issue the executive order.
John J. Sweeney, the A.F.L.- C.I.O.’s president, applauded Judge Kennedy’s ruling. The executive order, he said, was “sought by Bush’s corporate contributors and right- wing ideologues” and was “an early salvo in a continuing campaign of over-reaching initiatives that have undermined workers’ rights.”
The executive order sought to build on a 1988 Supreme Court ruling that guaranteed workers the right not to pay any union dues that go to political activities.
Workers who choose to belong to a union must pay their full dues, but workers who decide not to join often must pay a fee that is typically equal to their union dues. The money goes for collective bargaining, grievance procedures and other activities.
Only by choosing not to join the union can a worker invoke the right to withhold the part of the union fee that would finance political activity.
Unions were quick to attack Mr. Bush’s executive order, insisting that posting such notices would encourage workers to quit their unions. Unions and affiliated groups, including the United Auto Workers and the Office and Professional Employees International, brought the suit.
Jon Hiatt, the A.F.L.-C.I.O.’s general counsel, said unions would not have opposed the requirement to post the rules so long as federal contractors were also required to post notices about the many other rights protected by the National Labor Relations Act, including the right not to face retaliation by employers for supporting a union.
In his decision, Judge Kennedy relied on a 1959 Supreme Court ruling that the labor relations act pre-empted other laws that regulate any activity that is arguably protected or prohibited under the labor act.
Stefan Gleason, vice president of the National Right to Work Legal Defense Foundation, attacked Judge Kennedy’s ruling, saying, “The White House must appeal the court’s decision without delay to slow union officials’ systematic shakedown of working Americans for hundreds of millions of dollars for politics.”