Now in the third week of the partial government shutdown, tensions are rising rapidly over the impending wave of reductions in force across federal agencies.
In the aftermath of several agencies’ RIF announcements late last week, federal employees joined with Democratic lawmakers on Tuesday in Washington, D.C., to blast the planned layoffs.
With a view of the Office of Management and Budget’s main office building behind her, Jessica Weinberg, a former employee at the Food and Drug Administration, spoke to reporters among a crowd of current and former federal employees.
“I feel for my colleagues, those who received RIF notices over the weekend, folks from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration, and the Health Resources and Services Administration, among others — people who come in every day just wanting to protect the public,” said Weinberg, who was laid off in April as part of HHS’ first round of RIFs. “And for those people who are still working, trying to do their jobs while being told that their work is either not valuable or too political, neither are true.”
Across agencies, more than 4,000 federal employees were informed on Friday that they would be laid off in two months’ time. The layoff announcements came after OMB, just before the shutdown began, told agencies to draft RIF plans for programs that wouldn’t have alternative funding sources, or that weren’t aligned with President Donald Trump’s priorities.
At Tuesday’s press conference, Sen. Chris Van Hollen (D-Md.) called OMB’s assertion that the shutdown is causing the Trump administration to fire federal employees “a big fat lie.”
“It is also illegal and we will see them in court,” Van Hollen added.
About a dozen Senate and House Democrats joined federal employees at the press conference to condemn the RIFs that are now underway and impacting thousands of federal employees.
Similar to many of the lawmakers who spoke at Tuesday’s event, Rep. James Walkinshaw (D-Va.) voiced his appreciation for the federal workforce.
“I had conversation after conversation after conversation with federal workers, some who had been fired months ago over the course of the nine-month assault that they’ve experienced, some who are still on the job, doing their best to serve the American people,” Walkinshaw said.
Congress is currently at a standstill on budget negotiations. The Republican-led House is refusing to return to session, with Speaker Mike Johnson (R-La.) saying he has nothing to negotiate with Democrats until they vote to reopen the government.
The Senate is simultaneously stuck in a loop of failed votes to reopen the government as Democrats demand healthcare funds as part of an appropriations agreement.
Federal employee RIFs are so far expected to take place at the departments of Commerce, Education, Energy and Treasury, as well as the departments of Homeland Security, Health and Human Services, and Housing and Urban Development — with more layoff announcements likely on the way.
OMB on Tuesday vowed to “batten down the hatches” and move forward with further layoffs as the shutdown continues.
“Pay the troops, pay law enforcement, continue the RIFs, and wait,” OMB said in a social media post on X.
Conducting RIFs during a government shutdown is unprecedented. Typically, a portion of the federal workforce will get furloughed during a funding lapse, but employees have always been reinstated and provided back pay.
A 2019 law ensures both excepted and furloughed employees receive retroactive pay after shutdowns end, but OMB is now suggesting that back pay may be withheld for furloughed employees. Johnson has said he still hopes furloughed federal employees receive back pay.
In shutdown guidance from September, the Office of Personnel Management told agencies that any work on RIFs should be considered “excepted activities” that can continue during a government shutdown.
But Rob Shriver, managing director of the Civil Service Strong program at Democracy Forward, argued that it’s unlawful for RIFs to occur during a shutdown. RIF-related work does not fall into one of the defined categories of what work should be “excepted” in a funding lapse, Shriver said, and therefore it should not occur at agencies during a funding lapse.
“The fundamental nature of a shutdown is money has not been appropriated for normal government operations. Workforce restructuring, reorganizations — all the things that are the basis of a RIF — that’s not essential, that’s just part of normal government operations,” Shriver, OPM’s former acting director during the Biden administration, told Federal News Network at Tuesday’s press conference. “And when you are in a shutdown because there are no appropriations, you simply cannot engage in things that aren’t in one of those excepted categories.”
On behalf of the American Federation of Government Employees and the American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees, Democracy Forward is currently suing the Trump administration over the administration’s RIF actions. The lawsuit alleges that OMB’s RIF directive violates both the Anti-deficiency Act and the Administrative Procedure Act.
In the lawsuit, the two unions filed a motion for a preliminary injunction, attempting to temporarily block the pending RIFs while the court case continues. A district court judge is expected to hear legal arguments on Wednesday and will likely provide a decision on the unions’ motion at that time.
It’s yet to be seen what the U.S. District Court will decide on the unions’ motion for the new RIF actions. But a court decision back in May granted a preliminary injunction on agencies’ first round of RIFs this year. The Supreme Court, however, subsequently cleared the way for the Trump administration to proceed with widespread layoffs in July.
“No matter what happens, we will continue to fight these illegal RIFs. We’ll fight them tomorrow. We’ll fight them next week. We’ll fight them two months from now, two years from now — as long as it takes,” Shriver said.
The Associated Press contributed to this report.
If you would like to contact this reporter about recent changes in the federal government, please email [email protected] or reach out on Signal at drewfriedman.11
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