Susan Illston halted cuts to more than 4,100 employees across 7 agencies after union action
Judge Susan Illston of the United States District Court for the Northern District of California granted a temporary injunction blocking the Trump administration’s layoffs of federal employees during the shutdown.. The decision, released this Wednesday (October 15, 2025), responds to a process filed by unions representing workers at federal agencies.
“Evidence suggests that the Office of Management and Budget and the Office of Personnel Management [dos Estados Unidos] took advantage of the government interruption”, said Susan during the hearing. The information is from .
The layoffs, last Friday (10.Oct), would affect at least 4,100 employees from 7 federal agencies. Russ Vought, director of the OMB (Office of Management), stated in an interview that more cuts could occur, reaching “more than 10,000” workers.
The unions AFGE (American Federation of Government Employees) and AFSCME (American Federation of State, Municipal and District Employees) sued the court on September 30, before the strike, questioning threats of cuts and instructions for employees to carry out work related to layoffs during the shutdown. No previous government shutdown has resulted in mass layoffs.
AFGE President Everett Kelley said that “In AFGE’s 93 years of existence, no president has fired thousands of workers during a shutdown. We are challenging this illegal abuse of power and will not stop until all layoffs are reversed”.
