The dispute over the 2024 TSA collective bargaining agreement is now moving on two tracks at once.
The July 28 Ruling
On July 28, 2026, the district court denied the government's second attempt to end the case and lift the order protecting the agreement. The government had argued that its September 2025 determination, and a recent appeals court ruling in a related case, had changed the legal picture enough that the preliminary injunction should be dissolved. The court disagreed.
The reasoning matters. The injunction protecting the 2024 agreement rests on more than one legal claim. The court explained that it stands independently on two of them: that the agreement has the force and effect of law and cannot be terminated the way the government tried to terminate it, and that ending it without process raised due process concerns.
The changes the government pointed to were aimed at a different claim, the retaliation claim, and did not reach those two. Because a preliminary injunction can stand on a single claim, the court held that the government had not met its burden to dissolve it.
The Appeal
On September 25, 2026, the government filed a notice of appeal to the United States Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit, challenging that July 28 order. An order refusing to dissolve a preliminary injunction can be appealed immediately, and the government has chosen to do so rather than wait for trial.
The Ninth Circuit is the same court that, in a related case last year, vacated a preliminary injunction and found AFGE unlikely to succeed on its First Amendment retaliation claim, one of the three claims underlying the injunction in this case. The district court accounted for that ruling. It assumed the ruling was a significant change in the law and held that the injunction stands regardless, because it rests independently on the two claims that ruling did not address.
The Two Tracks
That appeal is now one track. The Ninth Circuit will decide whether the order protecting the agreement should stand.
The other track stays in the district court. The lawsuit itself, the question of whether terminating the agreement was lawful, continues before Judge Whitehead and keeps moving toward trial, which is not expected before mid-2027. Unless a court orders otherwise, the appeal does not pause the case below. The two now proceed at the same time.
For how this split works procedurally, see Two Tracks: How the TSA Contract Case Splits Between Two Courts.
What Applies Right Now
Through all of it, the preliminary injunction remains in full force. The district court's order states that it stays in effect unless it is modified, dissolved, or stayed. The agreement continues to apply while both tracks proceed.
One administrative note for the record. David P. Cummins was sworn in as Administrator of the Transportation Security Administration on August 7, 2026, and is now the named defendant in his official capacity.
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