 "OMB Director Russell Vought (2nd R) speaks about the upcoming wildfire and hurricane seasons alongside US President Donald Trump (L), Secretary of the Interior Doug Burgum (2nd L), and Secretary of Homeland Security Kristi Noem (R) in the Oval Office of the White House in Washington, DC, on June 10, 2025. File Image AFP")
A US federal court judge has temporarily blocked the US government from conducting massive layoffs of federal employees amid the ongoing government shutdown. According to NBC News, the ruling was delivered by Judge Susan Illston of the US District Court’s Northern District of California. It came in response to a lawsuit filed by labour unions representing federal workers amid the ongoing tussle with the White House.
“I am inclined to grant the plaintiff’s motion,” said Illston during a court hearing on the injunction request. “The evidence suggests that the office of management and budget, OMB, and the office of personnel management, OPM, have taken advantage of the lapse in government spending, in government functioning to assume that all bets are off, that the laws don’t apply to them any more, and that they can impose the structures that they like on the government situation that they don’t like, and I find, I believe, that the plaintiffs will demonstrate, ultimately, that what’s being done here is both illegal and is in excess of authority and is arbitrary and capricious.”
Meanwhile, Elizabeth Hedges, the attorney representing the US Department of Justice, said that she was not prepared to discuss the merits of the case. “As of now, the [temporary restraining order] is in effect,” Illston said. The ruling in the case came as Russ Vought , the White House OMB director, said on The Charlie Kirk Show that more cuts were coming, claiming the firings could be “north of 10,000” workers.
The Trump administration’s crackdown on federal employees
On Friday, the Trump administration announced the “reductions in force” across seven federal agencies, affecting 4,000 workers. From the beginning, the Trump government have been citing shutdown as the justification for the firings. On September 30, unions representing federal employees – the American Federation of Government Employees (AFGE) and the American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees (AFSCME) filed a lawsuit over the matter.
The suit was filed right before the shutdown and in response to the threats from the Trump administration that it would conduct reductions in force. The lawsuit alleged that OMB violated the law by making firing threats and instructing federal employees to carry out work related to the firings during the shutdown.
The union demanded an injunction to block the firings. It is pertient to note that no prior US government shutdown has resulted in mass layoffs of federal workers before. “In [the] AFGE’s 93 years of existence under several presidential administrations – including during Trump’s first term – no president has ever decided to fire thousands of furloughed workers during a government shutdown,” said Everett Kelley, president of the AFGE, in a statement on the firings.
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More Shorts“The AFGE is currently challenging President Trump’s illegal, unprecedented abuse of power, and we will not stop fighting until every reduction-in-force notice is rescinded," she added.