Federal judge won’t stop Trump administration’s mass firings for now

Washington — A federal judge on Thursday allowed President Trump’s efforts to shrink the federal workforce to continue moving forward while legal proceedings continue, declining a request from a group of labor unions to temporarily block his firing of federal employees and other actions targeting government workers.

U.S. District Judge Christopher Cooper, who sits on the federal district court in Washington, D.C., said in a 16-page decision that he had to deny the unions’ request for relief because he lacks jurisdiction over the claims. The judge, appointed by former President Barack Obama, said the unions must pursue their legal challenges through the scheme established by Congress in the Federal Service Labor-Management Relations Statute, which governs labor relations in the federal workforce.

The claims, he said, must be filed with the Federal Labor Relations Authority.

Still, Cooper wrote that the first month of Mr. Trump’s administration “has been defined by an onslaught of executive actions that have caused, some say by design, disruption and even chaos in widespread quarters of American society.” He also noted that mixed decisions by federal judges halting some of Mr. Trump’s actions and letting others proceed while cases move forward are not a surprise.

“Federal district judges are duty-bound to decide legal issues based on even-handed application of law and precedent — no matter the identity of the litigants or, regrettably at times, the consequences of their rulings for average people,” Cooper wrote.

The five unions, which represent federal workers, had asked Cooper to issue an order that temporarily prevented the termination of members who are probationary employees; implementation of large-scale reductions in force throughout the government; and a renewal of the president’s “deferred resignation program.”

That program offered federal workers the chance to resign their positions but retain full pay and benefits until Sept. 30. The deadline for employees to accept the offer was Feb. 12, and roughly 75,000 federal workers agreed to the program, according to the White House.

The unions argued that the president’s three initiatives — firing of probationary employees, deferred resignation program and planned large-scale reductions in force — violate the separation of powers and federal law.

In court filings, lawyers for the unions warned that the president’s plans to shrink the size of the government threatened more than 500,000 employees. Roughly 220,000 workers are considered probationary, they said, and another 345,000 were deemed nonessential during the last major government shutdown during Mr. Trump’s first term. Nonessential workers were targeted for firing in an executive order signed by the president that directs agency heads to prepare for “large-scale reductions in force.”

More than 12,000 federal workers have already been or are likely to be fired, including over 6,000 at the Internal Revenue Service who are expected to be terminated by the end of the month, according to a source familiar with the agency’s plans.

“A mass reduction of roughly twenty-five percent of the federal civilian workforce is unprecedented,” the unions wrote in a filing. “It raises the novel question of whether the Executive Branch may lawfully hobble the federal agencies that Congress creates, to which Congress assigns statutory missions, and which Congress funds so that they may accomplish those legislative directives.”

The Justice Department had urged the court to deny the unions’ request, arguing in part that they failed to show they would be harmed, absent relief.

“The president is charged with directing the Executive Branch workforce, and he has determined that the politically accountable heads of his agencies should take steps to streamline and modernize the workforce through measures including voluntary deferred resignations, removal of certain probationary employees, and [reductions in force],” Justice Department lawyers wrote in a filing.