The US Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit on Wednesday upheld the Trump administration’s ability to proceed with implementing three executive orders issued by President Donald Trump on the federal government’s labor and employee relations program.

Trump signed Executive Orders 13836, 13837, and 13839 in 2018, which related to federal labor-management relations. They dealt with collective bargaining, work time for representational activities, and discipline and discharge. Among other things, the orders made it easier to fire federal workers, who were given less time to improve performance after a bad review. The orders also more tightly restricted the use of federal employees’ official time.

Plaintiffs, who were the Service Employees International Union (SEIU) and the Service Employees International Union Local United, requested a preliminary injunction in 2019 to enjoin the implementation of these executive orders. The unions alleged that the executive orders violated the procedural and substantive provisions of the Administrative Procedure Act (APA).

The district court denied the request on grounds that it lacked subject matter jurisdiction over the matter and that the plaintiffs were unlikely to succeed on the merits of their case.

On appeal, the Second Circuit affirmed the district court’s ruling for “substantially the same reasons” as the district court. The executive orders were not subject to notice-and-comment rulemaking because the orders were “presumptively legally binding.”