Federal workers and their unions won big this week as a federal judge extended her order barring the Trump administration from firing federal workers because of the government shutdown.
The judge’s order now bars layoffs based on the shutdown indefinitely for any offices of the federal government where members of the plaintiff unions, including AFSCME, work. Her decision came in response to the labor unions’ request for a preliminary injunction that would prevent the administration from issuing or implementing reductions-in-force because of the shutdown. It is a continuation of a temporary restraining order she had previously issued when two unions, AFSCME and AFGE, filed the complaint giving rise to this case the day before the shutdown began.
“Today’s ruling is another victory for federal workers and our ongoing efforts to protect their jobs from an administration hellbent on illegally firing them,” said AFSCME President Lee Saunders in a press release. “Unlike the billionaires in this administration, public service workers dedicate themselves to serving their communities. These attempted mass firings would devastate both the workers and the people they serve.”
AFSCME members protected by the injunction work for the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA), Peace Corps, the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA), the U.S. Department of Justice (DOJ), and other federal executive agencies. Since the beginning of the year, they have been speaking out against the attacks from the Trump administration, and winning in court—even before this major victory.
AFSCME members’ stories were particularly influential in Judge Susan Illston’s ruling.
One of those stories came from AFSCME District Council 20 member Dan Ronneberg, an Air Force veteran who works for the Federal Aviation Administration and is president of AFSCME Local 1653.
In a sworn declaration he filed with the court in support of AFSCME’s injunction motion, Ronneberg explained how the shutdown reductions-in-force would literally be a matter of life and death for him if they were to be extended to the FAA.
Having received a kidney transplant days before the shutdown, Ronneberg said that without insurance through his job, his medications would cost over $9,000 a month.
“Any gap in health care coverage, especially one caused by a RIF during the shutdown when I am also not being paid, is enough to put my life in serious jeopardy,” Ronneberg said, in the portion of his declaration quoted by the court’s opinion. “If I am terminated, my life will be at risk and, at the very least, my family will face financial ruin.”
At a hearing in open court, Judge Illston of the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of California, who issued the opinion, said, before referencing Ronneberg’s declaration: “I think it’s important that we remember that although we are here talking about statutes and administrative procedure and the like, we are also talking about human lives, and these human lives are being dramatically affected by the activities that we’re discussing this morning.”
Since AFSCME and AFGE initially filed this case on September 30, the lawsuit has been expanded to include employees represented by the National Federation of Federal Employees (NFFE), the National Association of Government Employees (NAGE), the Service Employees International Union (SEIU), the National Treasury Employees Union (NTEU), the American Federation of Teachers (AFT), and the International Federation of Professional and Technical Engineers (IFPTE). It now covers all cabinet-level federal agencies and 24 independent federal agencies.
“We will keep fighting to protect public service jobs against this administration’s unlawful efforts to eliminate them,” Saunders also said.