The Solidarity Docket
March 12, 2026
DHS Shutdown Enters Second Month as Workers Miss Paychecks
While much of the federal government is operating normally, the Department of Homeland Security has now been shut down for nearly a month, and has received far less public attention than its consequences warrant. More than 100,000 DHS employees are facing delayed or missed paychecks in the coming days, including TSA officers who recently received partial checks with full deductions still withheld and are now slated to receive no paycheck at all in the next pay period.
The human cost is already showing up at airports. Several airports, including Houston and New Orleans, reported hours-long security wait times over the weekend as TSA officers called out.
TSA officers, FEMA staff, Coast Guard personnel, and other DHS employees are working without pay or on furlough, with no resolution in sight.
Arbitrators Continue to Find Administration's Telework Rollback Violates Union Contracts
This week, a labor arbitrator ordered the Social Security Administration to restore telework for employees represented by the American Federation of Government Employees, finding that SSA's indefinite suspension of telework violated its 2019 National Agreement with the union.
Arbitrator Sarah Espinosa held that while the contract gives SSA management discretion to temporarily suspend telework for operational needs, the agency's open-ended elimination of it, with no defined end date and no supporting evidence, amounted to a "clear and patent breach" of the agreement. The arbitrator also ordered SSA to cease and desist from further violations. SSA has announced it will appeal the ruling to the Federal Labor Relations Authority.
The ruling is the latest in a series of arbitration losses for the administration on telework. Third-party arbitrators have now found CBA violations at multiple agencies:
EPA/AFGE Council 238 (December 2025): Arbitrator found EPA violated its CBA by canceling telework without notice or opportunity to bargain.
HHS/NTEU (January 2026): Arbitrator ordered HHS to rescind its return-to-office directive and reinstate telework and remote work agreements for NTEU-represented employees, finding the agency committed an unfair labor practice by unilaterally terminating a five-year CBA without cause.
HUD/AFGE Council 222 (February 2026): Arbitrator ordered HUD to reinstate telework arrangements for approximately 7,000 AFGE-represented employees, finding the agency repudiated its CBA, and ordered reimbursement of commuting and dependent care costs incurred as a result of the unlawful rollback.
FAA/PASS (February 2026): Arbitrator found the FAA violated its CBA with the Professional Aviation Safety Specialists by canceling routine telework and remote work arrangements across the board.
SSA/AFGE (March 2026): Arbitrator ordered SSA to restore telework for AFGE-represented employees, rejecting the agency's position that an indefinite suspension qualifies as temporary.
In each case, agencies have indicated they will appeal (file exceptions) to the FLRA, which is holding them in abeyance, which prevents the unions from enforcing the arbitrator’s award. The practical effect of these rulings remains uncertain as long as those appeals are pending.
EPA and NASA Rescind Union Contracts as CBA Rollbacks Spread
The EPA and NASA have rescinded their collective bargaining agreements with the National Treasury Employees Union, following the pattern set by the IRS, which terminated its NTEU contract in late February. The agencies cited Executive Order 14251, the March 2025 order broadly excluding agencies with national security missions from collective bargaining, as the basis for the rescissions.
The rescissions follow a pattern that has now played out at multiple agencies: the administration invokes the national security executive order to terminate a CBA, stripping the union of its ability to enforce negotiated protections.
This week's developments at EPA and NASA are part of a broader and accelerating campaign. OPM has been actively advising additional agencies to rescind their collective bargaining agreements, and the IRS, EPA, and NASA rescissions all occurred within the span of roughly two weeks. NTEU's legal challenges to the underlying executive order remain pending in federal court.
Schedule Policy/Career Rules Take Effect, Cutting Financial Incentives
New Office of Personnel Management regulations implementing the Schedule Policy/Career (Schedule P-C) framework took effect March 9, 2026, introducing significant restrictions on financial incentives for employees in positions deemed to be of a confidential, policy-determining, or policy-advocating character.
Under the new rules, agencies are prohibited from approving new student loan repayment authorizations, and OPM has issued a blanket prohibition on new recruitment, relocation, and retention incentives for Schedule P-C positions. Employees in senior level or scientific and professional positions may also become ineligible for Presidential Rank Awards.
OPM has included grandfather protections for existing financial commitments. Agencies may continue honoring student loan repayment benefits and outstanding recruitment or retention incentives for the remainder of their current service agreement terms. though agency officials retain authority to terminate those agreements under existing OPM regulations.
Core federal benefits, including performance-based and special act awards under 5 U.S.C. Chapter 45, remain available to employees transitioned into the new schedule, subject to current administration policies.
The financial incentive restrictions compound the due process concerns at the heart of ongoing Schedule P-C litigation. Employees reclassified into the new schedule not only lose civil service removal protections, they now face a compensation and recognition framework designed to discourage the recruitment and retention of experienced policy staff.
Court Voids RIFs at Voice of America
On March 7, Judge Royce Lamberth of the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia granted partial summary judgment to plaintiffs in Widakuswara v. Lake, holding that Kari Lake's service as acting CEO of the U.S. Agency for Global Media violated both the Federal Vacancies Reform Act and the Appointments Clause of the Constitution.
The court found that Lake did not qualify to serve as acting CEO under any of the pathways the Vacancies Act permits. The Vacancies Act, the court held, prohibits using delegation statutes as an end-run around the advice-and-consent process. Lake's own deposition testimony acknowledged that she exercised approximately 95 percent of the CEO's statutory duties under those delegations, authority the court found she held unlawfully.
The practical consequence is significant. Under the Vacancies Act, actions taken by a person serving in violation of the statute's requirements have no force or effect and cannot be ratified. That includes the reduction-in-force (RIF) notices Lake signed covering 532 USAGM employees, personnel decisions, and operational changes she directed at the agency, including decisions to cease television broadcasting.
The ruling has implications beyond USAGM. The administration has filled numerous senior positions through appointment structures similar to the one the court rejected here. The court's analysis, that a President cannot install a first assistant after a vacancy occurs and then rely on that person's automatic elevation to circumvent Senate confirmation, applies broadly to how acting officers are appointed across the executive branch
A separate RIF at USAGM remains suspended by prior court order, and the agency recently offered employees a Deferred Resignation Program (deadline was March 9). The court noted in its opinion that the pending DRP made resolution of the cross-motions not only ripe but pressing.
Court Orders Deposition of Noem in FEMA Workforce Case
In American Federation of Government Employees v. Trump (N.D. Cal., Case No. 3:25-cv-03698), Judge Susan Illston issued an order on March 9 resolving expedited discovery disputes arising from AFGE's motion for a preliminary injunction challenging reductions in force at the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA). The case concerns whether DHS unlawfully stripped FEMA of its authority over personnel decisions and systematically eliminated positions in the agency's Cadre of On-Call Response and Recovery (“CORE”) that forms the backbone of federal disaster response operations.
The court ordered the government to produce documents and communications concerning CORE employee renewals and non-renewals, as well as internal communications regarding staffing targets, by March 17, 2026. The court rejected the government's attempt to limit document searches to a narrow set of named decisionmakers, and instead ordered searches of the full DHS Office of the Secretary, DHS and FEMA Chief Human Capital Officer offices, and FEMA supervisory staff - specifically including Secretary Noem, Corey Lewandowski, and Kara Voorhies.
Depositions of (soon to be Former) Secretary Noem, Senior Official Performing the Duties of Administrator Karen Evans, and the Chief Human Capital Officers of both DHS and FEMA are scheduled for the week of March 30.
The court-ordered deposition of a sitting cabinet secretary in connection with federal workforce litigation is itself notable, and the picture grew more complicated on March 5, when President Trump announced that Noem would be replaced by Senator Markwayne Mullin of Oklahoma, effective March 31. Whether Noem remains subject to the court's deposition order after leaving office is an open question that Rise Up is monitoring. Her personal involvement in the decisions at issue, the court specifically ordered searches of her custodial records, suggests her testimony may remain relevant regardless of her official status.
Other Litigation Developments This Week
Three additional cases advanced this week. In AFGE v. Kupor (D. Mass.), a federal court held a hearing on March 11 on AFGE's motion for a preliminary injunction challenging OPM's Merit Hiring Plan "Loyalty Question," which asks prospective civil service employees how they would advance the President's executive orders and policy priorities. AFGE argues the question violates the First Amendment and merit system principles. No ruling has issued yet.
In AFGE v. Office of Management and Budget (N.D. Cal., Case No. 3:25-cv-08302), the government filed a motion to dismiss the second amended and supplemental complaints on March 6; that case challenges the administration's authority to conduct reductions in force across more than twenty federal agencies covering bargaining unit members from AFGE, AFSCME, NFFE, SEIU, NAGE, NTEU, IFPTE, and AFT, with a case management conference set for May 8.
And in Public Employees for Environmental Responsibility v. Trump (D. Md., Case No. 8:25-cv-00260), plaintiffs filed a second amended complaint on March 4 continuing their challenge to the Schedule Policy/Career framework that would strip civil service protections from large categories of federal employees.
Rise Up maintains a litigation tracker with case summaries and docket links for all of these matters and more. To receive the Solidarity Docket in your inbox each week, sign up at the bottom of our webpage under the News tab.
Update: OPM Mails Remaining 1099-R Forms to Federal Retirees
Following weeks of delays that left many federal annuitants unable to file their taxes on time, OPM confirmed this week that remaining paper 1099-R forms are being mailed and should arrive by March 18.
Retirees who requested a physical copy and do not receive it by March 18 should contact OPM at requests@opm.gov.
NARFE's staff vice president for policy and programs John Hatton welcomed the update but noted it "arrives late and does not necessarily help those who have challenges accessing email." Federal News Network has reported that OPM's customer service phone line has been effectively unreachable for many retirees, with callers frequently receiving an automated message citing high call volumes.
This issue is one of many benefits and personnel uncertainties facing current and recently separated federal employees. If you have questions about how recent workforce actions may affect your retirement, health insurance, or other benefits, Rise Up and NARFE are hosting this upcoming webinar: "Navigating Federal Benefits in Uncertain Times: What Current and Recently Separated Feds Need to Know" on Tuesday, March 17, 2026, 2:00 p.m. ET. Topics will include retirement eligibility, continuing health and life insurance, appeal rights, and how personnel actions affect benefits.
To register:
