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a federal judge in California Trump administration temporarily barred from firing federal employees during government shutdown On Wednesday he said the government had “taken advantage” of this. Lack of funding to operate them.
The Office of Management and Budget announcement came just days after District Judge Susan Illston issued an emergency temporary injunction in favor of labor unions representing federal employees. About 4,100 federal employees were notified of the reduction in force.
“The evidence shows that the Office of Management and Budget and the Office of Personnel Management have taken advantage of government spending reductions to the extent that all bets are off, the laws no longer apply to them,” Illston said during a court hearing.
Under Illston’s decision, the administration cannot issue any further notifications of reductions in force to federal employees during or because of the shutdown.
Eight agencies – Department of Commerce, EducationEnergy, Environmental Protection Agency, Health and Human Services, Housing and Urban Development, Homeland Security and Treasury – organized by retrenchment after the president donald trump Threatened to use shutdown to make further cuts to workforce to put pressure on democrats Who boycotted the Republican temporary funding bill.
Illston’s decision came more than expected Reductions in the federal workforce.
Watt said on Wednesday charlie kirk show The administration wanted to be “very aggressive” in “closing down the bureaucracy” and could cut as many as 10,000 federal jobs during the shutdown.
Many of those targeted were working on parts of programs or agencies that Trump has aligned with Democrats, such as expanding renewable energy, overseeing grants supporting low-income communities and homeless programs, or handling special education services.
In an effort to thwart Trump’s threats, unions representing federal employees filed suit against the administration in September, before the shutdown.
But the administration still followed through on its threats.
Unions representing workers argued that OMB Director Russell Vought violated the law by improperly notifying employees about their layoffs and was politically motivated.
He also said the administration could violate the Anti-Deficiency Act, which prevents the government from spending money not already appropriated by Congress, by allocating severance payments promised to laid-off workers.
During Wednesday’s court hearing, Illston highlighted that the administration admitted “numerous errors” in its handling of force reduction notifications.
“I keep getting amended declarations under oath from people who say, ‘Well, I didn’t mean the last one. I was down by about 2,000, because it’s a fluid situation,'” Illston said, adding that the situation was due to the administration rushing to make a decision.
After sending layoff notices last week, hundreds of Centers for Disease Control and Prevention employees were told they received “incorrect” notifications, an HHS official said in a statement. Independent.
Lee Saunders, president of the American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees, said, “This decision confirms that these threats of mass firings and preventing layoff notices from going out are illegal.” Said in a statement.
Saunders said, “Federal workers already face enough uncertainty from the administration’s relentless attacks on the vital work they do to keep us safe and healthy. They deserve respect for the work they do – they should not be treated as political pawns by the billionaires running this administration who treat workers as expendable.”