A federal judge in California indicated Friday she would expand her temporary ruling blocking federal worker layoffs during the government shutdown, signaling her support for adding members of three additional labor groups.
Judge Susan Illston of the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of California, who is overseeing a challenge to the Trump administration’s shutdown layoffs, warned the government to err on the side of caution and said she does not think that layoffs should be happening while her temporary retraining order is in place.
“It is not complicated,” Illston said at a hearing. “During this time, these agencies should not be doing RIFs [reductions in force] of the protected folks that we’re talking about that have been enjoined.”
“A good lawyer, I think, would tell the client to be careful, and I would urge you to do that,” the judge told the government. “This is a terrible situation, and we ought not make it worse.”
Illston called the hearing after an attorney for employee unions alleged in a court filing that she “learned from multiple credible sources” that the Interior Department was “actively preparing a large-scale reduction in force” in which thousands of employees would be terminated. The filing alleged the layoffs would start on Monday.
The attorney said the information immediately raised concerns about the government’s compliance with the judge’s temporary restraining order.
The government, in a filing Friday, said layoff notices might be issued at the department during the shutdown for competitive areas that did not include any employees represented by the unions.
The department had planned on “imminently abolishing” positions in 68 competitive areas but will stop working on layoff notices in those areas while the order is in place, according to the filing.
At the Friday proceeding, Danielle Leonard, an attorney for the labor groups, told the court they believe there may be layoffs that are being prepared but have not been disclosed to the court.
“DOI revealed it because we called them out on it,” Leonard said.
She also argued the government has said it would comply with a narrow view of the temporary restraining order.
Justice Department attorney Elizabeth Hedges said she was not aware of any forthcoming layoffs for next week that would affect the plaintiffs.
But Leonard said that was not enough. “Your Honor, with all frankness, we are concerned that they are going to issue RIF notices at other agencies,” Leonard said.
“We need a representation that defendants are not going to do it,” she said.
In her order on Wednesday, Illston temporarily forbade the Trump administration from laying off federal employees. But her order only covered federal employees in any program, project or activity that included any bargaining unit or member of the suing unions, which included the American Federation of Government Employees and the American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees.
On Friday, the labor groups filed an updated lawsuit adding several other groups to the legal challenge, including the National Federation of Federal Employees and the Service Employees International Union.
In her ruling earlier this week, Illston found that the unions are likely to succeed on their claim that the Office of Personnel Management and Office of Management and Budget direction that agencies consider RIFs during a shutdown “rests on illegal grounds.”
“It is also far from normal for an administration to fire line-level civilian employees during a government shutdown as a way to punish the opposing political party. But this is precisely what President Trump has announced he is doing,” the judge wrote.
Illston also wrote that the plaintiffs in the case face the loss of health care, income and the potential relocation from their homes, “all constituting irreparable harm if they do not receive immediate injunctive relief.”
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