SAN FRANCISCO and WASHINGTON—There was a major victory for workers in court yesterday as U.S. District Court Judge William Aslup in San Francisco ruled that the Trump administration must immediately rehire 24,000 technically “probationary” government employees fired overnight on Feb. 13.
A serious damper on the celebration of that victory was placed yesterday by Democratic Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer, however when he announced that he will support the Republican House-approved bill allowing Musk to take a chainsaw to whatever else he pleases for the remainder of the fiscal year until next Fall.
Pro-labor congressional reps and Democratic U.S. senators condemned the Schumer decision saying it will allow Republicans to pass by a “budget reconciliation” process anything and everything Musk and Trump want for the rest of the fiscal year, essentially allowing them to complete a shutdown of the government they have already begun. They argue also that Shumer’s decision takes away one of the last bits of leverage Democrats and workers have to impact the legislative process. The AFL-CIO, meanwhile, has remained silent, offering no guidance on how workers can best fight considering the terrible choices they face now under the Trump regime.
Democratic Rep. Ocasio-Cortez of New York described the Schumer decision as a “cave-in” to Trump. Trump himself said this morning that he was “pleased” with Schumer’s move.
The judge who reversed the firings of the 24,000 workers yesterday said the Trumpites didn’t follow the law governing “reductions in force” that give the workers the rights to notice, reasons and appeals.
Not only that, Judge Alsup noted, even if the workers could try to exercise those rights, there was nobody to appeal to. Trump had fired members of the two boards legally obligated to hear workers’ complaints about unjust firings.
But while the workers won in court, they are likely to lose in the Senate, giving Trump a win in Congress. That’s because Senate Minority Leader Charles Schumer, D-N.Y., announced he would vote for the House-passed government spending bill that runs from now through September 30.
The ruling Republicans need eight Democratic votes to add to their 52 to get the wide-ranging measure through to Trump’s desk. With Schumer, they now have two, but he’s the one with clout. Sen. John Fetterman, D-Pa., preceded him. But Democratic senators from other purple states so far have swung the other way, citing harms to their states and constituents.
Schumer rationalized his key decision by saying “I believe it is my job…to minimize the harms to the American people. Therefore, I will vote to keep the government open, and not shut it down. There is nobody in the world, nobody, who wants to shut the government down more than Donald Trump. And Elon Musk. We should not give it to them.”
That measure, House Democrats and progressives said gives Trump and his puppeteer, multibillionaire Musk, free rein to take Musk’s chainsaw to government people and programs. The AFL-CIO was silent.
Letting Trump and Musk wreak havoc violates the Constitution, legal scholars say. Trump’s team abrogated the Constitution, too, Judge Alsup said: Congress, not Trump, decides spending and priorities.
The administration’s case was so weak that at one point Judge Alsup accused the government of flat-out lying about the firings. “Firings cannot be done in a day,” he added.
Even high-quality employees, who got top evaluations and then transferred to another job—and were thus on probation—were fired, the judge noted.
“It is a sad day when our government would fire an employee and say it was based on ‘performance’ when they fully know that is a lie,” Judge Alsup said.
The workers’ win in court, and Trump’s loss, was one of a string of judicial rulings against the radical right president and his handler, multibillionaire Elon Musk. Workers and their allies have won most of the group cases such as this one. Cases involving individual workers have been harder to win.
But another group case arose in Seattle even as Judge Alsup was throwing the book at Trump in San Francisco.
Sued in federal court
The Government Employees (AFGE), AFSCME and the Association of Flight Attendants-CWA sued in federal district court in Seattle to overturn Trump’s unilateral elimination of the collective bargaining agreement AFGE signed with the Transportation Department on behalf of the nation’s 45,000 Transportation Security Officers, aka the screeners.
San Francisco Judge Alsup had issued a temporary restraining order the week before the March 13 trial, and he basically made it permanent immediately after the 75-minute hearing. The case was there because one agency involved was the National Park Service, and dozens of the firings were in parks in California, including Yosemite.
The workers suffered “immediate and irreparable harm” by suddenly losing their jobs, the judge noted.
Danielle Leonard, who argued the case for the workers and the unions, of the pro-worker San Francisco law firm of Altshuler Berzon, noted each worker will suffer more than that.
That’s because if they seek other jobs, and employers ask “have you ever been fired,” the workers will have to answer “yes,” and almost all would automatically be disqualified.
The unions who sued, including the Government Employees (AFGE) and two of its locals, AFSCME, the AFL-CIO, the Association of Flight Attendants/CWA, the United Nurses Associations of California, cheered the verdict.
As the San Francisco session progressed, an increasingly pissed-off Judge Alsup, a 50-year veteran of the bar and the bench, directed scathing comments at Trump regime attorney Kelsey Holland. At one point, he even apologized, saying he didn’t hold Holland personally responsible.
But Judge Alsup also made it clear Leonard and the workers had the law—and the U.S. Constitution —on their side. Various civic and environmental groups joined the suit.
Trump’s two-sentence firing orders, in e-mails to the individual workers from Trump’s Office of Personnel Management and its acting director William Ezell, gave no reason for the firings from the Veterans Administration, the Agriculture Department, the Interior Department, the Defense Department, the Forest Service, the Energy Department and the Treasury.
Instead, all the emails said “per OPM instructions,” the employees’ performance was unsatisfactory and instructed them to immediately clean out their desks and leave. The judge said “all such terminations by Ezell were unlawful.”
The Trump regime lawyer said OPM declared workers “could be terminated because they can’t appeal” the firings. In many cases, “These were people with decades of federal service—and they were gone,” said Danielle Leonard, attorney for the workers and the unions.
Judge Alsup had tried to gather evidence from both sides in the case, issuing an order for OPM chief Ezell to come and testify in open court. Ezell sent a deposition instead. When the judge insisted he submit for questioning, Ezell refused and withdrew it. That left the Trump team with very little to say. Judge Alsup had quite a lot to say, though.
“We will advise all the probationary employees,” many of them veteran federal workers who were being promoted or switching from one position to another, “that their terminations shall be found unlawful,” the judge declared in open court as he was signing the order.
Have no authority
“The Office of Personnel Management and Director Ezell have no authority to order or require these firings.” Judge Alsop not only junked their past order, but banned future ones and “guidance” to agency heads about firings.
“AFGE is pleased with Judge Alsup’s order to immediately reinstate tens of thousands of probationary employees illegally fired from their jobs by an administration hellbent on crippling federal agencies and their work on behalf of the American public,” union President Everett Kelley said. “We are grateful for these employees and the critical work they do, and AFGE will keep fighting until all federal employees who were unjustly and illegally fired are given their jobs back.”
“Public service workers are the backbone of our communities in every way,” added AFSCME President Lee Saunders. “We celebrate the decision which orders fired federal employees must be reinstated and reinforces they cannot be fired without reason. This is a big win for all workers, especially AFSCME members of the United Nurses Associations of California and Council 20, who will be able to continue their essential work at the Department of Agriculture, Veterans Affairs Department, and other agencies.”
In the screeners case in Seattle, the unions said Trump’s unilateral elimination of their contract “violates the constitutional rights of federal employees and undermines collective bargaining protections.
Trump Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem’s “actions constitute unconstitutional retaliation against AFGE for exercising its First Amendment right to advocate on behalf of federal workers, and that the administration’s actions also violate the Fifth Amendment by stripping TSA workers of vested property rights without due process,” they said.
They want an injunction, restoring the contract, which runs through 2031, too. “This attack on our members is not just an attack on AFGE or transportation security officers. It’s an assault on the rights of every American worker,” Kelley said.
“Tearing up a legally negotiated union contract is unconstitutional, retaliatory, and will make the TSA experience worse for American travelers. These attempts by the administration to silence everyday workers across this country through retaliation and intimidation will not succeed. We will fight tirelessly to protect the rights of federal employees and defend our union contracts. TSA workers and American travelers deserve better. We won’t stop fighting until they get it.”
“Every worker and everyone who passes through an airport should be alarmed that Secretary Noem is illegally retaliating against TSA workers by refusing to honor their union contract”, said CWA President Claude Cummings. The officers keep CWA members—Flight Attendants and passenger service agents—and airplane passengers safe on the job and in the airports.
“The fair pay and benefits guaranteed by the TSA officers’ collective bargaining agreement attract highly-qualified workers, and the protections the agreement offers ensure they can raise concerns about issues that impact their ability to do their jobs effectively. No employer should be able to arbitrarily terminate a union contract.”
“The decision to eliminate collective bargaining rights for TSA…will take us back to the days of security at the lowest price with the highest costs for our country,” said AFA-CWA President Sara Nelson. “Since 9/11 we have committed to ‘Never Forget’ and this administration must understand just how seriously we mean it.”
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