Summary
- Trump
administration started layoffs for federal workers. - Layoffs
target agencies viewed as Democrat-favored. - Office
of Management and Budget confirmed layoffs are “substantial.”
Russell Vought, director of the
Office of Management and Budget, revealed the long-awaited action in a post on
X, stating that “the RIFs” (reductions in force or mass firings) had
“begun.”
In a memo sent to agency heads
last month, right-wing activist Vought, who was a key member of the Heritage
Foundation’s “Project 2025” plan to weaponize the federal government
against Democrats and concentrate power in Republican political appointees at
the expense of nonpartisan civil servants, hinted at the administration’s plan
to use a government shutdown as a pretext to fire more federal employees in
large numbers.
According to the previous memo,
agencies should think about cutting staff in programs that are “not
consistent with the President’s priorities” and lack an additional funding
source.
It’s unclear which agencies or how
many workers have been affected by Vought’s remark.
Non-emergency workers are usually
furloughed, which means they are not paid during the closure and are told not
to report for duty. There is no justification for firings in the event of a
shutdown. When shutdowns are over, furloughed workers usually return to work,
albeit with back pay.
However, President Donald Trump announced
last week that his administration intended to target civil staff as a means of
penalizing Democrats in Congress by taking advantage of the government funding
lapse that started on October 1.
He stated earlier this week that
“very popular Democrat programs” would be the focus of layoffs.
“We can do things during the
shutdown that are irreversible, that are bad for them and irreversible by them,
like cutting vast numbers of people and cutting things that they like, cutting
programs that they like,”
Trump said last Tuesday during a media availability
in the Oval Office.
“They’re taking a risk by having a shutdown.”
Everett Kelley, the president of
the American Federation of Government Employees, slammed the administration’s
move in a statement calling it “disgraceful” that the White House ‘has used the
government shutdown as an excuse to illegally fire thousands of workers who
provide critical services to communities across the country.”
“These workers show up every day
to serve the American people, and for the past nine months have been met with
nothing but cruelty and viciousness from President Trump. Every single American
citizen should be outraged,”
Kelley said. He added that Congress should “do
their jobs and negotiate an end to this shutdown immediately.”
Virginia congressman Don Beyer, a
Democrat whose district includes one of the largest percentages of federal
employees in the country, called the administration’s decision “cruel, illegal,
and yet another attack on our economy.”
What legal challenges unions have
filed against the RIFs?
The lawsuit brought by the
American Federation of Government Employees (AFGE) and the American Federation
of State, County and Municipal Employees (AFSCME) alleges that ordering layoffs
during a funding lapse violates the Antideficiency Act, which prohibits
spending money or obligating an entity to spend money that Congress did not
appropriate. Furloughs during a funding lapse generally provide for back pay,
but they do not authorize agencies to cut positions permanently the way an RIF
does.
The unions argue that a lapse in
appropriations does not alter the statutory authority of agencies to carry out
their authority in a situation of lapse, or permit them to lay employees off
permanently.
The lawsuits also allege that the
administration’s abrupt switch to mass layoffs is arbitrary, capricious, and an
abuse of discretion in violation of the APA.
