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    HHS layoffs temporarily halted by judge

    By Robyn Oster
    October 2025

    Some Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) workers are protected from the layoffs issued earlier this month.

    The details:

    • After a judge issued a temporary injunction aiming to pause the reduction-in-force (RIF) at HHS, HHS claimed that it could proceed with laying off hundreds of workers because none of them were covered by the judge’s order.
    • HHS said that staffers at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) used to be represented by the American Federation of Government Employees, the union that sued over the RIF, but that HHS terminated their collective bargaining agreements in the summer. The department said none of the other divisions affected by the layoffs (Administration for Strategic Preparedness and Response, Health Resources and Services Administration, Office of the Assistant Secretary for Health, Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration) were represented by any of the union plaintiffs.
    • The judge then clarified her order to include those who were in the union before HHS cancelled their collective bargaining agreement. The judge agreed with the unions that HHS was still recognizing the CDC employees as members of AFGE and that they should be protected from layoffs by the judge’s order.
    • HHS said that about a third of the employees it wants to lay off are protected by the judge’s temporary order. HHS said 362 people, most of them at CDC, are represented by the unions that filed the lawsuit and are therefore temporarily shielded from being let go.
    • Three additional unions representing federal employees (American Federation of Teachers, International Federation of Professional and Technical Engineers, and National Treasury Employees Union) then asked the judge to allow them to join the lawsuit. Their members include employees at HHS and SAMHSA. The judge is allowing the unions to join the case, meaning those employees will now be protected under the temporary restraining order blocking the RIF.
    • The judge then extended the order barring the layoffs indefinitely, barring action from a higher court.