US judge blocks Trump’s plan to lay off thousands of government workers

Audio By Carbonatix

Enlarge

By Daniel Wiessner

(Reuters) -A federal judge in California on Wednesday ordered President Donald Trump’s administration to halt mass layoffs of federal workers during a partial government shutdown while she considers claims by unions that the job cuts are illegal.

During a hearing in San Francisco, U.S. District Judge Susan Illston granted a request by two unions to block layoffs at more than 30 federal agencies while the case proceeds.

The decision is likely to be appealed quickly, but it offers a reprieve for federal workers facing a nearly year-long push by the Trump administration to slash their ranks.

The White House did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

The White House said last week that it had begun substantial layoffs across the U.S. government, as Trump followed through on a threat to cut the federal workforce during the government shutdown, now in its 15th day. In an order Wednesday, Trump extended an existing freeze on hiring new federal workers, with exceptions for military personnel and appointees to political roles.

About 4,100 workers at eight agencies have been notified that they are being laid off so far, according to a Tuesday court filing by the administration.

Illston’s ruling came shortly after White House Budget Director Russell Vought said on “The Charlie Kirk Show” that more than 10,000 federal workers could lose their jobs because of the shutdown.

Illston at the hearing cited a series of public statements by Trump and Vought that she said showed explicit political motivations for the layoffs, such as Trump saying that cuts would target “Democrat agencies.”

“You can’t do that in a nation of laws. And we have laws here, and the things that are being articulated here are not within the law,” said Illston, an appointee of Democratic former President Bill Clinton.

JUDGE DEMANDS DETAILS ON LAYOFFS

Democracy Forward, a legal group that represents the unions, said Illston made clear that the president’s targeting of federal workers was unlawful.

“Our civil servants do the work of the people, and playing games with their livelihoods is cruel and unlawful and a threat to everyone in our nation,” Skye Perryman, the group’s president and CEO, said in a statement.

Illston ordered the administration to provide by Friday an accounting of any “actual or imminent” layoffs and to outline the steps agencies are taking to comply with her ruling.

A U.S. Department of Justice lawyer, Elizabeth Hedges, at the hearing said she was not prepared to address Illston’s concerns about the legality of the layoffs. She instead argued that the unions must bring their claims to a federal labor board before being able to sue over them in court.

Illston disagreed and chided the Justice Department for refusing to take a position on the unions’ legal claims.

“The hatchet is falling on the heads of employees all across the nation, and you’re not even prepared to address whether that’s legal,” she said.

The American Federation of Government Employees and American Federation of State, County, and Municipal Employees claim that implementing layoffs is not an essential service that can be performed during a lapse in government funding, and that the shutdown does not justify mass job cuts because most federal workers have been furloughed without pay.

Trump’s Republicans hold majorities in both chambers of Congress but need at least seven Democratic votes to pass a funding bill in the Senate, where Democrats are holding out for an extension of health-insurance subsidies. Democrats have said they will not cave to Trump’s pressure tactics, and a renewed bid to pass a spending bill failed on Wednesday.

(Reporting by Daniel Wiessner in Albany, New York and Courtney Rozen; Editing by Cynthia Osterman and Alexia Garamfalvi)