A federal judge in California temporarily blocked the Trump administration from firing federal workers during the government shutdown Wednesday, saying the government had “taken advantage” of the lapse in funding to conduct them.
District Judge Susan Illston issued the emergency temporary injunction in favor of labor unions representing the federal employees, just days after the Office of Management and Budget announced roughly 4,100 federal workers had been given reduction-in-force notifications.
“The evidence suggests that the Office of Management and Budget and the Office of Personnel Management have taken advantage of the lapse in government spending, in government functioning, to assume all bets are off, the laws don’t apply to them anymore,” Illston said during a court hearing.
Under Illston’s ruling, the administration cannot issue any more reduction-in-force notifications to federal employees during or because of the shutdown.
Eight agencies – the Departments of Commerce, Education, Energy, Environmental Protection Agency, Health and Human Services, Housing and Urban Development, Homeland Security, and Treasury – had conducted layoffs after President Donald Trump threatened to use the shutdown to slash more of the workforce to pressure Democrats who boycotted Republicans’ temporary funding bill.
Illston’s ruling arrives ahead of what was expected to be more cuts to the federal workforce.
Vought said Wednesday on the Charlie Kirk Show that the administration wanted to be “very aggressive” in “shuttering the bureaucracy” and could slash more than 10,000 federal jobs during the shutdown.
Many of those targeted were working on programs or part of agencies that Trump has associated with Democrats, such as those working on expanding renewable energy, overseeing grants that support low-income communities and homelessness programs, or handling special education services.
Unions representing the federal workers filed a lawsuit against the administration in September, ahead of the shutdown, in an attempt to thwart Trump’s threats.
But the administration followed through on its threats anyway.
The unions representing workers pushed back, arguing that OMB Director Russell Vought violated the law by improperly notifying employees of their layoffs and that they were politically motivated.
They also said the administration could violate the Antideficiency Act, which prohibits the government from spending money not already appropriated by Congress, by allocating promised severance payments to laid off workers.
During Wednesday’s court hearing, Illston highlighted that the administration admittedly made “many errors” in conducting the reduction-in-force notifications.
“I keep getting revised declarations under oath from people who say, ‘Well, I didn’t mean the last one. I was off by about 2,000, because it’s a fluid situation,’” Illston said, adding that the situation was due to the administration rushing through decisions.
After sending layoff notices last week, hundreds of employees from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention were told they received “incorrect” notifications, an HHS official said in a statement to The Independent.
“This decision affirms that these threatened mass firings are likely illegal and blocks layoff notices from going out,” Lee Saunders, the president of the American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees, said in a statement.
“Federal workers have already faced enough uncertainty from the administration’s relentless attacks on the important jobs they do to keep us safe and healthy. They deserve respect for the work they do – not to be treated as political pawns by the billionaires running this administration who see workers as expendable,” Saunders added.
