The Veterans Administration has terminated the union rights of hundreds of thousands of its employees — even as the Trump administration had instructed agencies to hold off on such a step. Why it matters: The White House crackdown on the federal workforce,

The Department of Veterans Affairs is terminating collective bargaining agreements with several key government unions representing its employees.

The move runs against the Trump administration’s claims to federal jurists that agencies would wait until the conclusion of litigation challenging the president’s executive order seeking to outlaw collective bargaining at most federal agencies on national security grounds.