Trump must halt mass layoffs of federal workers: Judge

The Trump administration must temporarily cease from engaging in widespread layoffs and firings of govt workers, a California federal court ruled Friday.

President Donald Trump's Feb executive order calling for a radical reorganisation of the federal workforce likely violates the Constitution, Judge Susan Illston of the US district court for the Northern District of California said.

She granted a temporary restraining order requested by coalition of labour unions, nonprofit organisations, and municipal govts to halt worker layoffs nationwide.

The ruling is the biggest blow so far to Trump's efforts to downsize the federal govt by cutting costs and slashing what's viewed as administrative bloat. The administration appealed the decision early Saturday to the US Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit.

Illston, a Clinton appointee, said at a Friday hearing in San Francisco that she was inclined to grant the restraining order to "protect the power of the legislative branch."

"The President has the authority to seek changes to executive branch agencies, but he must do so in lawful ways and, in the case of large-scale reorganisations, with the cooperation of the legislative branch," Illston said in her order issued hours after the hearing. "Many presidents have sought this cooperation before; many iterations of Congress have provided it."

The plaintiffs sued late last month, claiming that Trump exceeded his constitutional authority by reshaping the executive branch and its agencies without Congressional approval. The Trump administration has fired tens of thousands of employees, from agencies including the health and human services department and the consumer financial protection bureau.

The plaintiffs, which include American Federation of Government Employees, said the administration plans to lay off hundreds of thousands more at agencies including the departments of labour, state, defence, and energy. The complaint points to a Feb 11 executive order that sought to "commence a critical transformation of the Federal bureaucracy" by restructuring entire agencies.