#afge

The AFGE is the biggest federal employee union - it covers Department of State, Department of Transportation, HHS, large parts of the Department of Commerce like NOAA and the Census, and it is REALLY hurting, between the number of lawsuits it has to fight at once, the loss of membership dues from laid off employees, and Trump cutting off automatic paycheck deduction of union dues for a lot of agencies. The union recently had to lay off 205/355 full time union staff due to the rising expenses and falling income, so every little bit in the defense fund helps a huge amount.

I know you're all counting on us federal employees to fight the good fight instead of surrendering like the regime wants us to... but we rely on the union to fight for our jobs and the good those jobs do for the country, and the union needs your help. I don't usually ask for charity donations for a variety of reasons (don't want to look like a bot, among other things), but this is not normal times. Thanks!

Michael Sainato at The Guardian:

A federal court has granted a temporary injunction blocking the Trump administration’s firings of federal employees during the government shutdown. The ruling by Judge Susan Illston of the US district court’s northern district of California came in response to a lawsuit filed by labor unions representing federal workers. “I am inclined to grant the plaintiff’s motion,” said Illston during a court hearing on the injunction request. “The evidence suggests that the office of management and budget, OMB, and the office of personnel management, OPM, have taken advantage of the lapse in government spending, in government functioning to assume that all bets are off, that the laws don’t apply to them any more, and that they can impose the structures that they like on the government situation that they don’t like, and I find, I believe, that the plaintiffs will demonstrate, ultimately, that what’s being done here is both illegal and is in excess of authority and is arbitrary and capricious.”

Justice department attorney Elizabeth Hedges said she was not prepared to discuss the merits of the case. “As of now, the [temporary restraining order] is in effect,” Illston said. The ruling comes as Russ Vought, the White House OMB director, said on The Charlie Kirk Show that more cuts were coming, claiming the firings could be “north of 10,000” workers. On Friday, the Trump administration announced “reductions in force” across seven federal agencies, with at least 4,100 workers affected, citing the shutdown as justification for the firings.

Unions representing federal employees – the American Federation of Government Employees (AFGE) and the American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees (AFSCME) – filed a lawsuit on 30 September, before the shutdown, in response to threats from the Trump administration that it would conduct reductions in force. The lawsuit alleges that the OMB, through Vought, violated the law by making firing threats and instructing federal employees to carry out work related to the firings during the shutdown. The unions filed for an injunction to block the firings. No prior government shutdown has resulted in mass layoffs of federal workers before. “In [the] AFGE’s 93 years of existence under several presidential administrations – including during Trump’s first term – no president has ever decided to fire thousands of furloughed workers during a government shutdown,” said Everett Kelley, president of the AFGE, in a statement on the firings.

In AFGE v. OMB, Judge Susan Illston issues a temporary injunction against the unlawful firings by OMB head Russ Vought during the GOP-caused government shutdown.

See Also:

The president of the American Federation of Government Employees (AFGE), Everett Kelly, said: “Governor DeSantis’ threat to ‘start slitting throats’ of federal employees is dangerous, disgusting, disgraceful and disqualifying.” Among Republican commentators, the columnist Max Boot called DeSantis’s words “deranged” while Bill Kristol, founder of the Bulwark, a conservative site, said the governor was “making a bold play to dominate the maniacal psychopath lane in the Republican primary”.

By Lev Koufax

On Feb. 21, the Federal Register published a disgraceful anti-worker memo issued by President Donald Trump attacking union rights for civilian workers in the Department of Defense. The memo effectively gives Secretary of Defense Mark Esper the right to unilaterally strip all 750,000 DOD civilian workers of their collective bargaining rights and union representation. 

Just another Trump lie — a known pathological lair.

#RepublicansComplicit  #TrumpShutdown Read #ShutdownStories 

The American Federation of Government Employees — which represents more than 700,000 federal employees and ranks as the country’s largest federal workers’ union — asserted there “should be no confusion” about whether its members want the government to reopen.

“They are eager to get back to work” 

“They unequivocally oppose using shutdowns as a means of resolving policy disputes. This is not about a wall, this is about 800,000 real people with real families and real bills to pay.”

Chris Geidner at Law Dork:

The U.S. Supreme Court on Tuesday issued an order allowing the Trump administration to resume mass-firing plans across the federal government, prompting a sharp — and solo — dissent from Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson. At the request of the Justice Department on the emergency — or shadow — docket, the Supreme Court stayed a lower-court order that had blocked President Donald Trump’s efforts for the past two months in a lawsuit brought by unions, nonprofit organizations, and local governments. Trump’s efforts — which were announced in an executive order and implemented initially through a joint memo from the heads of the Office of Management and Budget and the Office of Personnel Management — had been blocked by U.S. District Judge Susan Illston, who issued a temporary restraining order and then a preliminary injunction blocking the efforts because, she found, ”the President has neither constitutional nor, at this time, statutory authority to reorganize the executive branch.”

On Tuesday, the Supreme Court disagreed, holding that the government “is likely to succeed on its argument that the Executive Order and Memorandum are lawful” — a key factor in deciding whether to grant a requested stay to a party. Why and how that was so were left unexplained in the court’s unsigned order. The court also held that “the other factors bearing on whether to grant a stay are satisfied” — which include a showing of “irreparable” harm and equities — and, as such, granted the stay. In dissent, and referencing Illston’s orders, Jackson wrote that “that temporary, practical, harm-reducing preservation of the status quo was no match for this Court’s demonstrated enthusiasm for greenlighting this President’s legally dubious actions in an emergency posture.”

Only Jackson dissented publicly. Although the vote in shadow docket cases is not public, at least Justice Sonia Sotomayor joined the conservative majority, writing a brief concurrence. Notably — and perhaps key to Sotomayor’s vote — the court did not weigh in on actual reduction-in-force (RIF) plans or agency cuts.

Depressing from SC(R)OTUS: They greenlight the Trump Regime’s mass firing policies.

See Also:

The Guardian: US supreme court clears way for Trump officials to resume mass government firings

Emily Singer at HuffPost:

A federal judge on Thursday excoriated the Trump administration, ruling they illegally fired thousands of probationary federal employees and ordered the administration to immediately offer those workers their jobs back. U.S. District Judge William Alsup's ruling means thousands of workers at the departments of Veterans Affairs, Agriculture, Defense, Energy, Interior, and Treasury who were fired as part of President Donald Trump and co-President Elon Musk's failing efforts to slash the federal budget, will be offered their jobs back. “It is sad, a sad day when our government would fire some good employee and say it was based on performance when they know good and well that’s a lie,” Alsup said from the bench, according to Politico. “That should not have been done in our country.” Alsup also accused the Justice Department lawyers of willfully hiding facts to cover up their "sham" firings of federal employees.

[...] The lawsuit, filed by a group of federal employee unions, said that the firings were illegal because the Office of Personnel Management—which directed federal agencies to carry out the mass firings—did not have the authority to fire the probationary workers.  In the federal government, probationary workers also include employees who receive promotions, and the unions accused the Trump administration of “exploiting and misusing the probationary period to eliminate staff across federal agencies.” "OPM …  acted unlawfully by directing federal agencies to use a standardized termination notice falsely claiming performance issues,” the American Federation of Government Employees union, one of the groups that filed the lawsuit, said. “Congress, not OPM, controls and authorizes federal employment and related spending by the federal administrative agencies, and Congress has determined that each agency is responsible for managing its own employees.”

A pair of judges ruled yesterday to reverse the lawless DOGE firings of probationary federal workers.

See Also:

The Guardian: Judge orders Trump administration to reinstate most fired probationary staff

[26 Jan 2026]