Federal workers and supporters rally outside of the Department of Health and Human Services on Feb. 19, 2025 in Washington, DC.
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A federal judge Thursday denied a bid by labor unions to block the Trump administration from carrying out mass layoffs at federal agencies.
U.S. District Judge Christopher R. Cooper indicated in his ruling that he was sympathetic to the National Treasury Employees’ Union and the four other unions that were seeking a restraining order to temporarily halt the layoffs, but said that federal court was not the appropriate venue for their lawsuit.
“NTEU fails to establish that it is likely to succeed on the merits because this Court likely lacks subject matter jurisdiction over the claims it asserts. The Court will therefore deny the unions’ motion for a temporary restraining order and, for the same reasons, deny their request for a preliminary injunction,” Cooper wrote in his order.
The unions were seeking to block mass firings of probationary employees and President Donald Trump’s Feb. 11 executive order for “large-scale reductions” in the federal workforce. The judge found that those types of claims should go before the Federal Labor Relations Authority, a three-member agency that handles federal labor disputes.
The NTEU case was the broadest suit brought against the administration to date over federal layoffs. There’s another suit pending in California involving probationary employees, and other actions involving firings at individual agencies.
Cooper began his 16-page ruling on a sympathetic note.
“The first month of President Trump’s second 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. Affected citizens and their advocates have challenged many of these actions on an emergency basis in this Court and others across the country,” he wrote.
“Certain of the President’s actions have been temporarily halted; others have been permitted to proceed, at least for the time being. These mixed results should surprise no one. 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.”
