Federal Layoff Risk Shifts to Monday as Unions Go to Court (1)

Unions representing hundreds of thousands of federal workers asked a US judge to immediately block any mass firings by the Trump administration during the government shutdown while they press a legal challenge.

The emergency request Saturday night to US District Judge Vince Chhabria in San Francisco follows what the unions contend are a series of statements from President Donald Trump and other senior officials signaling that agencies could take action on layoff plans as early as Monday.

Kevin Hassett, Trump’s top economic adviser in the White House, said the administration is holding off on layoffs at least until Monday, when a divided Senate is due to vote for the fifth time on a stopgap bill to keep government open through Nov. 21. Without Democratic defections, the vote is likely to fail.

“I think that if the president decides that the negotiations are absolutely going nowhere that there will start to be layoffs,” Hassett said Sunday on CNN’s State of the Union. “We think the Democrats, there’s a chance that they’ll be reasonable. Let’s get back into town on Monday, and if they are then I think there’s no reason for those layoffs.”

US government operations have been largely halted since Oct. 1 as budget talks between Democrats and Republicans remain at an impasse over a spending measure that would resume normal operations.

Trump, asked about job cuts at the White House on Sunday, said the firings are “taking place right now” and blamed the Democrats for the government shutdown.

It was not immediately clear whether any layoffs have taken place yet.

The unions that brought the lawsuit are seeking a temporary order barring agencies from conducting layoffs related to programs, projects or other activities that their members are part of while they argue for longer-term court intervention.

Read More: Unions Sue Over Possible Government Layoffs During Shutdown

The White House didn’t immediately respond to a request for comment.

An estimated 750,000 federal workers are being furloughed daily during the shutdown, according to the Congressional Budget Office.

The lawsuit accuses the Office of Management and Budget — specifically its director, Russell Vought — of illegally ordering agencies to use the gap in congressionally approved funding as a springboard for firings known as reductions in force, or RIFs.

Vought told House lawmakers on Oct. 1, the first day of the shutdown, that some agencies would move to terminate workers soon, Bloomberg News previously reported. White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt told reporters at the time that layoffs were “imminent” but didn’t share details.

The unions’ lawsuit focuses on a memo that the White House budget office sent to agency leaders at the end of September directing them to prepare termination plans. That guidance was based on a theory that the government is no longer required by law to carry out unfunded programs that are “not consistent with the president’s priorities,” according to the memo.

The unions argue that there’s no legal authority for the White House plan to permanently shed workers during a “lapse” in appropriations from Congress. After the shutdown, furloughed workers and employees who worked without paychecks receive back pay.

No end to the funding impasse is immediately in sight. While Republicans control both chambers of Congress, they need support from several Democrats to get the 60 votes needed for a spending bill to clear the Senate.

Democrats have sought health care-related concessions, specifically extending Affordable Care Act subsidies to address a jump in insurance premiums for millions of Americans.

The case is American Federation of Government Employees, AFL-CIO v. Office of Management and Budget, 25-cv-8302, US District Court, Northern District of California (San Francisco).

(Updates with comments from Trump in sixth paragraph.)

--With assistance from Kate Queram.

To contact the reporters on this story:
Zoe Tillman in Washington at ztillman2@bloomberg.net;
Catherine Lucey in Washington at clucey8@bloomberg.net;
Erik Wasson in Washington at ewasson@bloomberg.net

To contact the editors responsible for this story:
Sara Forden at sforden@bloomberg.net

Tony Czuczka, Wendy Benjaminson

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