A coalition of labor unions, nonprofit organizations, and municipal governments will step into federal court Friday to halt widespread agency layoffs in the most expansive legal case to date against the Trump administration’s attempts to cull the federal workforce.
The 25 plaintiffs are seeking to convince Judge
The case centers on the reach of the president’s power over the federal government, with attorneys divided over its ultimate success.
“The president is trying to supersize the role of the executive like we’ve never seen before,” said Debra D’Agostino, a founding partner with the Federal Practice Group representing government employees. “The point of this lawsuit is to say ‘no, this is not how our country is set up.’”
Attorneys say it also will test the plaintiffs’ strategy to avoid some of the procedural issues that have dogged federal worker unions’ litigation against the administration. Courts, for example, have found they lack jurisdiction to hear disputes about other terminations because the unions didn’t exhaust internal appeals channels first.
The American Federation of Government Employees, the American Federation of State County and Municipal Employees, and the Service Employees International Union joined with 11 nonprofit organizations and six cities in filing the 115-page complaint against the administration on April 28.
Presidential Authority
The lawsuit is part of a rapidly expanding pool of litigation seeking to halt Trump’s assault on federal-sector workers. Unions, states, and nonprofits have filed dozens of complaints against the administration’s efforts to downsize the government in the name of efficiency.
Nearly all of the litigation has accused Trump of overreach, but complaints have come in response to specific actions by the administration: deferred resignation offers; executive orders dismantling agencies or altering civil servant categories; and mass firings of recently hired employees.
The latest complaint states that executive branch agencies are created and funded by Congress, and the president doesn’t have authority to"reorganize, downsize, or otherwise transform” them.
“When the President takes for himself the legislative power of Congress to recreate federal agencies in the manner he sees fit, he violates the Constitution,” according to the lawsuit. “And when the President does so across every federal agency, he threatens the very constitutional foundation of this nation.”
Ryan Nerney, a federal-sector employment lawyer for Tully Rinckey PLLC, said it will be difficult for the plaintiffs to get more than a TRO on the reduction-in-force plans.
“On the actual merits, I don’t know how strong it is to argue that the president doesn’t have authority over the executive branch, but I think the ultimate goal here is to stop it for as long as possible,” he said.
The Trump administration has discharged tens of thousands of employees nationwide, but, according to the complaint, it plans to lay off hundreds of thousands more at numerous agencies, including in the Departments of State, Defense, and Energy.
Representatives for the Justice Department didn’t immediately respond to requests for comment. The government’s attorneys argued in a brief that the subject matter of the lawsuit was far too broad for a TRO.
Jurisdiction, Standing Issues
The lawsuit also attempts to solve various procedural issues that have arisen in other cases. Judges in Massachusetts and the District of Columbia have refused to grant relief for unions, saying they either couldn’t show current harm stemming from Trump’s actions, or directing them instead to exhaust options with the Federal Labor Relations Authority.
The Northern District of California has been friendly to unions’ claims, however. Judge William Alsup allowed a complaint over the firings of probationary workers to move ahead because the plaintiffs included non-union groups, that could successfully show harm and didn’t have internal appeals options.
The plaintiffs are seeking to dodge some procedural questionsby framing the claims broadly, but that may not ultimately matter, said Nerney. If the court finds that the president has the authority to carry out RIFs, then the only path for recourse is for individual employees to go through the Merit Systems Protections Board to fight for their employment status.
“Ultimately, the president does have the authority through various regulations to subject employees to RIFs. But there’s a specific way they have to do it, and if they don’t follow that then things can get really dragged out,” he said.
The plaintiffs are represented by attorneys from Munger, Tolles and Olson LLP, Altshuer Berzon LLP, the Democracy Forward Foundation, and the AFGE. The government is represented by the DOJ.
The case is AFGE v. Trump, N.D. Cal., No. 3:25-cv-03698, hearing scheduled 5/9/25.
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