Unions representing federal workers can sue the Trump administration over its mass terminations, as opposed to being restricted to bringing challenges to federal labor boards, a judge said on March 24.
U.S. District Judge William Alsup said that the boards would not be able to adjudicate the unions’ claims that the U.S. Office of Personnel Management (OPM) violated the U.S. Constitution’s separation of powers doctrine.
“In sum, but for district court jurisdiction, the public-sector unions will be precluded from judicial recourse and relief even for their separation-of-powers claim,” Alsup said in the ruling.
The American Federation of Government Employees and other unions sued the administration in February over OPM directives sent to agency heads, which aimed to further President Donald Trump’s goal of reducing the federal workforce and said agencies should fire newer employees who were not deemed critical to the mission of each agency.
Alsup concluded on Feb. 27 that OPM lacked authority to hire or fire any employees outside of the office but also ruled that while he had jurisdiction over newly fired workers, unions must take their complaints to federal labor boards rather than the courts.
In the new order, Alsup said he was wrong, breaking from three recent rulings in other cases.
The claims brought by the unions, including that OPM violated the separation of powers by directing other agencies to terminate their employees, are standard constitutional law questions that are considered by the courts, the judge said.
The expertise of the Federal Labor Relations Authority and the U.S. Merit Systems Protection Board would not help resolve the claims that revolve around OPM’s authority and do not directly implicate the Civil Service Reform Act, which outlines the system for reviewing terminations and other personnel action against federal employees, according to the ruling.
Three other U.S. district judges have found that similar cases should go before a federal board, but those cases are different in part because they challenged separate aspects of the mass terminations, such as Trump’s order to agencies to carry out firings through plans called reductions-in-force, Alsup said.
The judge ordered parties in the case, including the government, to file responses to his order by March 28.
Alsup and another judge recently ordered the government to reinstate nearly 25,000 newer workers whom officials had fired across 18 agencies. An appeals court upheld Alsup’s order, prompting the administration to appeal to the U.S. Supreme Court. Justices have not yet weighed in on the matter.
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