Federal government labor unions sued Tuesday to block the Trump administration from conducting mass layoffs during the potential upcoming government shutdown.
Employees are usually temporarily furloughed during a shutdown, except for exempted workers, and receive back pay after a shutdown ends. But Trump and the White House budget office have suggested permanent firings could be on the table if government funding expires at midnight.
The lawsuit, filed in federal court in San Francisco, alleges the Office of Management and Budget (OMB) misinterpreted federal law governing shutdowns when it issued a memo suggesting agencies should “use this opportunity” to consider layoffs for programs with lapsed funding and that aren’t priorities of the president.
“OMB’s Lapse Memorandum is a partisan attempt to pressure members of Congress to accede to the Trump administration’s demands in negotiations over a CR, and to punish federal employees and the labor unions that represent them if those members of Congress do not surrender to the President’s demands,” the lawsuit states.
The Hill has reached out to OMB for comment.
The lawsuit was brought by the American Federation of Government Employees (AFGE), two of its local units and the American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees.
“Announcing plans to fire potentially tens of thousands of federal employees simply because Congress and the administration are at odds on funding the government past the end of the fiscal year is not only illegal – it’s immoral and unconscionable,” AFGE National President Everett Kelley said in a statement.
The unions are represented by San Francisco-based law firm Altshuler Berzon and two left-leaning legal organizations that frequently sue the Trump administration: Democracy Forward and State Democracy Defenders Fund.
The lawsuit landed as a midnight deadline to fund the government fast approached, with no deal in sight and both parties trading blame.
“We don’t want it to shut down,” Trump told reporters Tuesday in the Oval Office. “We can do things during the shutdown that are irreversible, that are bad for them [Democrats] and irreversible by them. Like cutting vast numbers of people out, cutting things that they like, cutting programs that they like.”