SAN FRANCISCO—In a big union win in GOP President Donald Trump’s continuing war against his federal workforce, the workers’ unions beat him in a settlement agreement in federal court—and one the U.S. Supreme Court can’t overturn. But the calendar can.
In a 65-page settlement the two sides signed and U.S. District Judge Susan Illston in San Francisco approved on September 29, Trump’s Office of Personnel Management will wipe out 4,200 firings—officially called RIFs, or reductions in force—it imposed at specific agencies during last year’s 43-day federal shutdown in October and November.
Not only are the RIFs gone, but all RIFed workers who suffered will get back pay, if they haven’t already received it, and officially have their prior positions restored.
The RIF provisions will be removed from the Trump regime’s employee handbook government-wide. If Trump agencies want to RIF workers in the future, they must provide 30 days’ advance public notice.
But there is a catch: The settlement runs only through the end of this calendar year, unless Congress passes money bills to keep the government going in fiscal year 2027, which begins October 1.
The current deadline for passage is December 11. If Trump tries more RIFs before the end of this year, the unions can reopen the lawsuit, Judge Illston ruled.
The only other “win” for Trump and his team in the settlement was that they didn’t have to admit they were guilty of anything. But the agreement itself makes clear they were.
Trump’s Office of Management and Budget and Office of Personnel Management—the federal government’s human resources department—“exceeded statutory authority, acted contrary to law, and acted in an arbitrary and capricious manner in issuing the OMB [government] lapse memorandum and associated OPM guidance and instructions directing federal agencies to engage in Reductions In Force (“RIFs”) during a federal government lapse in appropriations,” the settlement says.
It adds that the White House offices, plus departments hit by the shutdown and the RIFs—Commerce, Education, Homeland Security, Health and Human Services, Housing and Urban Development, Treasury, Transportation and the Environmental Protection Agency—violated the U.S. Constitution’s “appropriations clause,” which gives Congress, not the president, the power of the purse.
And the Trump regime broke the law again by refusing to end the RIFs once the government reopened until Jan. 30, 2026.
Trump imposed the shutdown and the RIFs in an attempt to force Congress to bend to his will on specific goals in the money bills, such as billions of dollars to finish constructing his anti-Hispanic Mexican Wall. At least 40% of the federal workforce was RIFed without pay.
The rest, such as Transportation Security Officers—the airport screeners—food inspectors and air traffic controllers, were declared “essential” and had to toil without pay for seven weeks.
The settlement agreement cheered the leaders of the unions that sued Trump in U.S. District Court in San Francisco. Many of those unions’ locals also joined the lawsuit. Judge Illston previously awarded the unions an injunction against Trump resumption of RIFs.
Everett Kelley. President of the Government Employees (AFGE), who represents most of the RIFed workers—and most federal workers in general—said the settlement shows Trump “tried to turn a shutdown into an excuse to fire the public servants who kept this country running without a paycheck on payday.”
Trump, in turn, called AFGE “the enemy” and “traitors.” Kelley noted that during the shutdown, Trump posted an artificial intelligence-generated video on his Truth Social platform portraying his OMB Director, Russell Vought, as the Grim Reaper. Vought, like Trump, is a chief author of that section of Trump’s far-right 2024 campaign platform, Project 2025.
“We fought back, we held the line, and they backed down,” Kelley said of the Trump government.
“Only an administration that wanted to hurt workers and help billionaires would use a government shutdown as a cynical pretext to fire tens of thousands of federal employees,” said Teachers/AFT President Randi Weingarten. She called the settlement “yet another rebuke to this administration’s illegal attacks on the people who keep this country running.
“If they try it again, we will be waiting in the courts and on the streets to send a message that the American people won’t stand for these bully-boy tactics that hold workers’ careers to ransom to pursue a craven political agenda.”
“This billionaire-run administration continues to put politics between these essential workers and their public service, at great expense to our communities,” said AFSCME President Patrick Moran. “This settlement places limits on their ability to use federal workers as bargaining chips to push their extreme agenda during the next government shutdown, but the fight is far from over.”
“After inflicting intentional trauma and stress on the entire federal workforce during the longest government shutdown” in U.S. history, “using it as a tactic to fire public servants was a new low” for Trump, said National Federation of Federal Employees President Randy Erwin. “Not only was it absolutely shameful, but it was highly illegal. Today, we are proud the rule of law has prevailed, and the courts have sided with the unions and organizations who pushed back on this reckless action.”
“You cannot gut the federal workforce without hurting the American people,” warned Treasury Secretary Doreen Greenwald” The administration tried to use a government shutdown to eliminate jobs, hollow out federal agencies, and make it harder for Americans to get the services they depend on. This victory protects more than federal employees and their livelihoods. It protects a government that works for the people it serves.”
Federal workers “should be able to do their jobs and provide for their families without the threat of losing their livelihoods to score political points,” said Service Employees President April Verrett. “This settlement is a victory for working people and a reminder of what happens when workers stand together and refuse to be treated as disposable.”
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