President Trump signs executive orders in the Oval Office at the White House 13 February 2025: 340,000 of the executive branch’s 2.3 million people falls into the scope of the order, the suit says. Image: FRANCIS CHUNG/POOL/EPA-EFE/Shutterstock
UPDATED: A federal judge in Washington, D.C. has refused a request to block President Trump’s executive order telling agencies to prepare to conduct “large-scale” reductions in force, although the challenge will continue in what the sponsoring unions say would result in “the mass firing of hundreds of thousands of federal employees.”
The judge’s decision did not address the underlying contention of the suit—that order violates laws and rules governing when RIFs can be invoked and how they are to be conducted—but instead said that the challenge must first be brought to the FLRA.
One of the sponsoring unions, the NTEU, said the suit “will be heard and federal employees will get their day in court to challenge the unlawful mass firings and other attacks on their jobs, their agencies, and their service to the country.”
In addition to steering the complaint into the FLRA—which has a 1-1 party split on its governing board following Trump’s recent firing of the other Democratic member—the unions could challenge the judge’s decision on jurisdiction into federal appeals court.
The suit targets the order’s directive for layoffs of employees in their probationary periods already underway—which specifically are being challenged in a separate suit—and the order’s directive to agencies to make plans to conduct RIFs of other employees—which have not started but could be just ahead.
The order directs agencies to focus RIFs in functions that might be suspended or closed, and on employees who are not typically designated as required to stay on the job during a government shutdown. About 340,000 of the executive branch’s 2.3 million people fall under the latter category, the suit says, adding that for some agencies such as the IRS the number varies by time of year.
“It is unknown how many employees work in the Order’s vaguely defined category of ‘initiatives, components or operations’ that the Administration ‘suspends or closes,’” it adds.
The suit points out that regulations state that RIFs can be conducted only due to “lack of work; shortage of funds; insufficient personnel ceiling; reorganization; the exercise of reemployment rights or restoration rights; or reclassification of an employee’s position due to erosion of duties.” In contrast, the order “directs agencies to promptly engage in RIFs for none of the specified, allowable reasons,” the suit says.
Further, it notes that RIF rules require that “competitive areas” be defined by organization units and geographical location, while probationary employees are being laid off across agencies regardless of those limits, it says.
The suit also asks the court to bar “extending, expanding, or replicating” the deferred resignation program. The enrollment window for that program is now closed, following a ruling in a separate suit, with reported acceptance by some 75,000 employees.
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See also,
How Do Age and Years of Service Impact My Federal Retirement
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