By Daniel Wiessner
(Reuters) -A U.S. appeals court on Thursday allowed President Donald Trumpto remove a Democratic member from a federal labor board while his administration appeals a ruling that said her firing was illegal and had reinstated her.
A three-judge panel of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit paused the lower court decision pending the appeal, saying a law shielding members of the Federal Labor Relations Authority from being removed at will likely violated Trump’s broad powers to control the executive branch.
U.S. District Judge Sparkle Sooknanan in Washington had ruled otherwise in March and ordered the reinstatement of Susan Tsui Grundmann, who had been fired by Trump a month earlier.
The three-member FLRA, which was created by Congress to be independent from the White House, hears disputes between federal agencies and their employees’ unions. It can order agencies to bargain with unions and in some cases prevent agencies from firing unionized workers.
(Reporting by Daniel Wiessner in Albany; Editing by Daniel Wallis)
