During the October 2025 government shutdown, the Trump administration exploited the funding lapse to fire additional federal employees — a tactic that federal employee unions argued was illegal, since reduction-in-force procedures require advance notice periods and due process that cannot be properly conducted during a shutdown when agencies are not fully operational.
Union Legal Response
AFGE and AFSCME filed expanded lawsuits challenging the shutdown firings. Judge Susan Illston granted a temporary restraining order in October, followed by a preliminary injunction on October 28 covering all Cabinet departments and 24 independent agencies. On December 17, a second preliminary injunction ordered rescission of reduction-in-force notices at multiple agencies, saving approximately 1,000 jobs.
Cumulative Workforce Impact
By the end of 2025, the federal workforce had been reduced by approximately 9% — roughly 200,000 positions eliminated through the combined effects of the "Fork in the Road" deferred resignations (75,000), probationary firings (~25,000), agency-specific RIFs (including EPA's 3,700 and State Department's 25% loss), shutdown-period terminations, and ongoing attrition driven by hostile working conditions. Federal News Network reported that the cumulative transformation of the federal workforce in 2025 was historically unprecedented in peacetime.
AFGE's Broader Campaign
AFGE and its allies filed more than a dozen federal lawsuits throughout 2025 challenging workforce actions, securing multiple preliminary injunctions. In September 2025, Judge Alsup partially granted summary judgment ruling OPM's mass termination orders unlawful, making many of the earlier preliminary injunctions permanent — though the government appealed, with briefing continuing into 2026.
Capture Significance
The use of a government shutdown as cover for additional firings reflected the administration's willingness to exploit every available mechanism — including crises it created or prolonged — to advance workforce destruction. The pattern of firing first and litigating later imposed enormous costs on unions and employees who had to repeatedly seek emergency judicial relief, even when courts consistently found the firings unlawful.