In concrete terms, the ruling means that no further dismissals may occur at the more than twenty institutions that the court designated. The dismissals of staff who were already able to leave have also been canceled until further notice. The court is taking the step to have time to look at the lawsuits that unions filed against the dismissals. According to the unions, these are illegal and the government would use the shutdown to implement a round of layoffs.
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Government services in the United States have been in a shutdown since early October because a new budget for their financing was not approved on time. As a result, many thousands of civil servants are stuck at home without continued payment of wages.
President Donald Trump announced on Wednesday that he would still pay active duty soldiers salaries by decree despite the shutdown. According to Politico, he obtained the necessary funding from a fund that was actually intended for military innovation. The news medium speaks of a “temporary band-aid”: with the next payment round at the end of October, Trump would no longer be able to draw on it, according to Politico.
Government employees in “critical functions”, such as the armed forces, must also continue working during a shutdown, even if they are not paid for it.