US Supreme Court permits Trump to move ahead with mass layoffs and destruction of federal agencies

Kevin Reed

The Supreme Court is seen on Capitol Hill in Washington, Dec. 17, 2024. [AP Photo/J. Scott Applewhite, ]

In an attack on workers’ democratic and social rights, the Supreme Court of the United States (SCOTUS) has cleared the way for the Trump administration to proceed with mass layoffs of federal employees.

The tens of thousands of job cuts target the infrastructure of government and public services, the focus of the assault by the Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE), formerly led by billionaire oligarch Elon Musk.

The decision, which overrides a lower court injunction, marks a new stage in the offensive by the Trump administration against US government services dating back to the New Deal reforms that were implemented to forestall social revolution in the 1930s.

On July 8, the Supreme Court lifted a lower court ruling that temporarily blocked Trump’s sweeping plans to lay off federal workers across more than 20 agencies.

The unsigned SCOTUS order, supported by the Court’s right-wing majority as well as liberal Justices Elena Kagan and Sonia Sotomayor, allows the administration to resume its efforts to “reorganize and scale back” the federal government while the legal challenge proceeds.

The order does not decide the underlying legality of Trump’s executive order announcing the elimination of the jobs or the specific agency reduction plans. Instead, the Court claims the government is “likely to succeed” in its argument that the executive order and related directives are within presidential authority.

The court majority states:

We express no view on the legality of any agency reduction-in-force and reorganization plan produced or approved pursuant to the executive order and memorandum. The district court enjoined further implementation or approval of the plans based on its view about the illegality of the executive order and memorandum, not on any assessment of the plans themselves. Those plans are not before this court.

As it has done in other recent critical decisions, SCOTUS refused to address the substance of the matter while granting Trump precisely what he wanted: the green light to proceed with his fascist agenda.

The Supreme Court’s order is notably terse, offering little in the way of legal language. There is no engagement with the catastrophic real-world consequences of the layoffs or the constitutional questions raised by the lower courts.

The lower court decision, issued by US District Judge Susan Illston in San Francisco, had temporarily blocked the layoffs, saying that Trump had exceeded his authority by ordering mass firings and reorganizations without Congressional approval, which is required for agencies created and funded by Congress.

The judge asserted this critical element of constitutional checks and balances, noting that the executive cannot unilaterally dismantle the federal government.

Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson stood alone in dissent, issuing a rebuke and warning to the nation. She wrote:

Given the fact-based nature of the issue in this case and the many serious harms that result from allowing the President to dramatically reconfigure the Federal Government, it was eminently reasonable for the District Court to maintain the status quo while the courts evaluate the lawfulness of the President’s executive action.

Jackson accused the majority of allowing Trump to take a “wrecking ball” to the federal bureaucracy:

At bottom, this case is about whether that action amounts to a structural overhaul that usurps Congress’s policymaking prerogatives—and it is hard to imagine deciding that question in any meaningful way after those changes have happened. Yet, for some reason, this Court sees fit to step in now and release the President’s wrecking ball at the outset of this litigation.

Her dissent points to the court’s ongoing abdication of its responsibility to defend the constitutional separation of powers and protect the public from executive abuse.

The case originated in a wave of lawsuits filed by states and labor unions after Trump’s February executive order mandating mass layoffs and agency downsizing. Attorneys general from Washington D.C. and 19 states argued that federal agencies were violating the law by firing probationary employees under the pretense of poor performance, when they were executing a politically motivated far-right reduction of the workforce.

The states warned that these actions would devastate regional economies and public services, as federal law requires advance notice and coordination for mass layoffs to mitigate economic dislocation.

The layoffs target departments including Agriculture, Commerce, Health and Human Services, State, Treasury and Veterans Affairs. Experts and state officials warned that the cuts would disrupt essential services such as healthcare, food safety and veterans’ benefits, create cascading instability in local economies reliant on federal employment, and overwhelm state support systems as displaced workers seek assistance.

Arthur Wheaton, director of labor studies at Cornell University, cautioned:

It will not save a lot of money if they try to maintain the same level of service, so you may be getting less from the smaller workforce. … It’s going to be real expensive for the lawsuits and the fights that are going to go on for long term. And it creates an incredible amount of tension and stress within the system, which is partly by design.

Federal workers themselves report deep anxiety and exhaustion, with many contemplating early retirement or fearing for the future of their departments. The layoffs, already affecting over 10,000 workers, threaten to cripple agencies like Veterans Affairs, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and the Environmental Protection Agency.

The dire impact of staff reductions has already been manifested in the death and destruction caused by the flooding in Texas, where the National Weather Service was ill-prepared to warn the public due to understaffing and a lack of critical resources.

The response of federal government employee unions, particularly the American Federation of Government Employees (AFGE) and the AFL-CIO, has been characterized solely by legal maneuvering and appeals to the courts, without any mass mobilization of the workers.

When the layoffs were first announced, the unions filed lawsuits and issued statements but refused to organize strikes or workplace actions that would mobilize the broader working class against the Trump administration in defense of jobs and services.

This strategy, rooted in the unions’ alliance with the Democratic Party, has proven bankrupt. The unions have preferred to rely on legal appeals and negotiations with the very political establishment that is complicit in the assault on public sector jobs.

This has left the working class vulnerable and without any effective means of resisting the deadly impact of the destruction of government infrastructure and the vital services it provides.

The Democratic Party has played a critical role in enabling the Trump administration’s offensive. In March, Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer announced that he would vote to keep the government running by supporting a Republican-led continuing resolution, providing Trump with the votes needed to avert a shutdown and continue his policies.

Schumer insisted a shutdown would be worse than giving Trump the means to further attack federal employees. This maneuver, combined with the Democrats’ reliance on stunts and legal challenges with little hope of success, has allowed Trump and his fascist Republican allies to push through their “Big Beautiful Bill”—a massive transfer of wealth to the billionaire elite which balloons the federal deficit while destroying public services and kicking more than 11 million workers off Medicaid.

UK Labour government welcomes report calling for curtailing of jury trials

Robert Stevens

The Starmer government is considering scrapping juries in a substantial number of trials, following proposals in Sir Brian Leveson’s report commissioned by Labour last December. Justice Secretary Shabana Mahmood responded warmly, “Swifter justice requires bold reform, and that is what I asked Sir Brian Leveson to propose.”

The proposals include:

• Removing the right to trial by jury for defendants charged with crimes with a maximum sentence of two years or less.
• Creating a new division of the crown court in which only a judge and two magistrates (without a jury) hear certain “either way” cases—involving charges which defendants can currently choose to have heard by either a jury or a magistrate. The presumption would be that all defendants facing charges with a maximum sentence of three years or less would receive such a trial.
• Making trial by judge alone mandatory for serious and complex fraud cases.
• Giving defendants the “right” to request trial by judge alone.
• Incentivising guilty pleas at the first opportunity by increasing the maximum sentence reduction offered in return.

Leveson's Independent Review of the Criminal Courts [Photo by Open Government Licence v3.0]

These proposals would roll back centuries of struggle for democratic rights. Jury trials began to be standardised after the abolition of the Star Chamber, made up of Privy Councillors (representing the monarch) and common-law judges, with the Habeas Corpus Act of 1640. This was a product of the political and social ferment that was to erupt shortly after in the English Civil War/Revolution of 1642-51 between Royalist forces and the Parliamentary (New Model) armies representing the emerging bourgeoisie and allied squirarchy, which saw the beheading of Charles I in 1649 and brought major advances in the rule of law. Over time, popular pressure widened the ranks of those deemed eligible for jury service.

Among the offences now recommended by Leveson to be tried without a jury—and those most heavily reported by the media—are various sexual offences, forms of racial and religious harassment and violence, drug and anti-social behaviour offences. Combined with the example of serious fraud cases, these will be used by Labour to make a populist pitch for this unprecedented attack on democratic rights.

The government will also insist that the removal of jury trials is necessary to address the enormous crown court backlog, which stands at 77,000 cases—a record high. Trials are being listed for as far in the future as 2029. Leveson writes in his introduction of a “real risk of total system collapse in the near future”.

Sir Brian Leveson in 2019 [Photo by Courts and Tribunals Judiciary Service of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland/United Kingdom Open Government Licence v3.0]

This is a travesty, holding the threat of prison over thousands of people—many of them under onerous bail conditions or held on remand—for years, denying resolution and closure to victims and falsely accused alike. But it is the fault of a joint Labour-Tory policy of mass imprisonment, coupled with continuous funding cuts to the justice system—provoking strikes in 2022.

Britain has by far the highest incarceration rate in Western Europe, much higher rates of reoffending (29 percent of inmates within just one year of release) and longer average sentences, which have increased sharply in the last decade. This is the ruling class’s answer to the social consequences of growing inequality and poverty: effectively warehousing a section of the population treated as a criminal underclass.

At the same time, Leveson points to “long-term constraints and reductions in funding and investment in criminal justice over many years [that] have resulted in fewer available courts, a considerable maintenance backlog in the court estate and a smaller and less experienced workforce.”

Another section explains, “The MoJ [Ministry of Justice] and criminal justice agencies have experienced some of the most significant funding constraints of any government departments over the last 15 to 20 years”.

Rather than providing the funding to fix this—let alone resources for a genuinely rehabilitative justice system, or tackling the deprivation at the root of crime—Labour is trying to use a crisis of its own making to justify system of assembly-line “justice”.

As the Secret Barrister—whose anonymous first-hand accounts of life as a criminal barrister are UK bestsellers—explained on X: “To understand the context of Leveson’s call for restricting jury trial, look at the terms of reference. Govt wouldn’t let him recommend increased funding. Akin to demanding a solution to starvation that doesn’t include food. And the recommendation being to chop off body parts.”

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Keir Starmer is well-placed to lead this offensive. As head of the Crown Prosecution Service, he led the rubber-stamp sentencing of over 1,000 young people in courts called into 24-hour operation after the 2012 London riots.

The new and decisive impulse for Starmer’s commissioning of the report is his government’s drive to impose mass repression against rising opposition to its agenda of austerity and imperialist violence.

Leveson’s report was published just days after the illegalisation under counter-terror laws of Palestine Action. The proscription order makes membership of, or any expression of support for, the peaceful protest group punishable by up to 14 years in prison. Leaders of the Palestine Solidarity Campaign and Stop the War Coalition are meanwhile facing charges under the Public Order Act.

The Labour government—complicit in Israel’s genocidal assault on Gaza—has been confronted with repeated mass demonstrations London for more than a year and a half. It feels itself desperately isolated as it plans to impose more savage austerity to secure the fortunes of the financial oligarchy and the resources needed to pay for ramped-up military spending.

As the Socialist Equality Party (UK) explained on June 23, in response to the proscription of Palestine Action:

Faced with mounting opposition, the British state, with Labour at the helm, is moving to police state methods of rule. The attack on PA is preparation for state repression against the strikes and mass protests that will inevitably erupt against the imposition of deeply unpopular wars and the mass austerity necessary to wage them.

There have already been major attacks on juries in the context of protest trials, with climate protesters prevented by judges from explaining their political motivations to jurors. People have even been arrested for standing quietly outside courthouses with placards explaining “Jurors you have an absolute right to acquit a defendant according to your conscience.” This right was established over 350 years ago by Bushell’s Case.

Leveson’s proposals set a precedent for an even wider assault, allowing the scale of political arrests being contemplated by the Starmer government to be processed through a streamlined system.

Defending such elementary democratic rights as the right to the jury will depend on a political movement of the working class. The response of the Guardian to the Leveson report confirms that there is no section of the bourgeois opinion which will do so.

The self-professed “world’s leading liberal voice” responded to news of Leveson’s report with a blasé “explainer” piece: “How do criminal courts work without juries around the world?”

It followed this up with an editorial which soothed, “Only a tiny minority of criminal cases in England and Wales are decided by a jury—as few as 1%, once guilty pleas and judge-directed acquittals are taken into account. There are democracies where jury trial is rarer still.”

While “There are also good reasons why the right to be judged by one’s peers is deemed a foundational principle of justice and an insurance against prejudice and capricious power,” Leveson’s task was “finding the least worst solution when justice must be tailored to a tight budget… When the time comes, ministers might feel compelled by fiscal circumstance to accept Sir Brian’s recommendations.”

Petrol station explosion in Rome, Italy kills one and injures dozens, mass casualties narrowly avoided

Allison Smith

The working-class neighborhood of Prenestino in the southeast of Rome was jolted awake last Friday morning by devastating blasts at a nearby refueling station.

When the initial blast occurred, fire fighters and emergency operators were already on scene assessing a leak caused by a truck that collided with an underground liquefied petroleum gas (LPG) pipeline during a refueling or unloading operation in the early hours of Friday morning.

The destroyed petrol station after the explosion [Photo: Vigili del Fuoco]

The collision led to a gas leak at the station’s pump island, and the initial explosion was likely due to ignition of LPG vapours. Fire department officials described the primary blast as a BLEVE (boiling liquid expanding vapor explosion), which is common when pressurized flammable liquids rapidly ignite.

The blasts’ fireballs and shockwaves caused enormous damage to the petrol station and surrounding area and injured 45 residents and emergency service workers, including several firefighters who faced intense heat from the blast flames. It took 15 firefighters to bring the fire under control.

At least two of the injured were listed in critical condition. On Thursday it was announced that Claudio Ercoli, aged 54—one of the critically injured—had died with over 55 percent burns to his body.

Had the blast occurred a few minutes later than it did, the injuries may have been a lot worse as the adjacent property houses a children’s sports camp that was destroyed by the blast.

“If it had happened… half an hour later, it would have been a catastrophe”, Fabio Balzani, president of the Polisportiva Villa De Sanctis sports centre, told Associated Press. A quick evacuation of children prevented a mass casualty event. He said around 60 children were due to be at the site for a summer camp, and around 120 people had booked to use the swimming pool that morning.

Prenestino resident, Massimo Bartoletti, told local news outlet Roma Repubblica: “I saw the first explosion with the classic fireball. Shortly after came a second one, which was hellish. A fiery mushroom formed in the sky. It made the whole area shake. It looked like hell, everything was flying in the sky.”

The New York Times reported that local hair salon owner, Roberto De Carolis, was just opening his salon when firefighers began evacuating the area. Surveillance video footage from inside his shop showed the windows had shattered sending smoke and debries inside the building. “I can’t imagine what it is like inside. Thank God it happened before the store opened,” De Carolis said.

Rome prosecutors have begun an investigation into the cause of the explosion, which could be related to a previous gas leak during the unloading phase of liquified petroleum gas at the station. The investigation could now include charges of manslaugher.

Barbara Belardinelli and her daughter were slightly injured after the first explosion. After leaving their home to investigate, the next explosion struck them. Barbara told Associated Press, “As soon as we heard the second explosion, we were also hit by a ball of fire. I thought that a car near us exploded, metal fragments were flying in the air… We felt the fire on the skin, the arm of my daughter is still red, it was horrible.”

According to news outlet La Repubblica, the refueling station belongs to a family-run business known as “Eco GasAuto,” founded in 2005. The company, led by the nonagenarian Giovanni Pietroboni and his children, operates four fuel stations in Rome and generated just under €11 million in revenue last year.

Investigations by local authorities (including Rome prosecutors) are ongoing—not just into how it could possibly happen that a fuel truck was able to strike an underground gas pipe, but into other possible safety violations, licensing irregularities, and negligence.

Prosecutors and fire safety experts said they are analysing the pipeline’s condition, safety systems, and CCTV/video and will determine if the refueling protocols were properly followed and decide if civil or criminal liability applies.

Cost-cutting, fragmented subcontracting, poor licensing oversight, and weak regulatory enforcement have led to record numbers of preventable, man-made workplace disasters in Italy in recent years.

Last December, five people died in Calenzano, on the northern outskirts of Florence in a blast at a tank truck loading area. Prosecutors in the nearby city of Prato have opened an investigation to determine criminal responsibility for the Eni blast. Investigations are ongoing.

In February last year, three workers were seriously injured and five were killed in Florence, at a Esselunga supermarket construction site, after a concrete beam and layers of slabs collapsed, crushing the workers to death. Investigations showed that the site was riddled with safety violations.

Earlier this month, also in the Prenestino area, an out-of-service hybrid ATAC bus built in 2024 caught fire and exploded, damaging a nearby apartment building.

Rome has a long history of exploding buses, known as “flambuses,” and under mass pressure from Rome residents, ATAC is being forced to modernise its fleet.

The investigation into the hybrid bus explosion is highlighting ongoing concerns about electrical system reliability and poor maintenance standards across Rome’s public transport vehicles.

A nationwide inspection last year of 310 farms, found that 66 percent had serious safety or labour violations. The human cost is born by workers such as Satnam Singh, and Indian farm labourer whose arm was severed by farm equipment. Singh was denied medical assistance and dumped at his home by his employer where he bled to death, leaving his grieving wife and children destitute.

Agricultural labourers toil as modern-day slaves under the infamous “caporalato”—an illegal labour system—widespread in the Italian fields.

In recent years, Italy has registered a record number of workplace deaths and serious injuries.

Italy’s National Institute for Insurance against Accidents at Work (INAIL) reports that in 2024, there were approximately 414,853 workplace injuries, a slight drop from 2023. Despite fewer accidents overall, fatal workplace deaths rose to 797 in 2024. Commuting-related incidents surged too, with fatalities while traveling to or from work rising from 239 in 2023 to 280 in 2024

Italian unions only pay lip service to workplace safety and oversight. In an attempt to defuse public outrage over the tragic deaths in the Esselunga construction collapse, the CGIL and UIL unions called a toothless two-hour national strike.

When the COVID pandemic first hit Italy in 2020, wildcat strikes erupted across the peninsula, fighting to halt the spread of the deadly disease and defying Italy’s corrupt union bureaucracy that worked hand in glove with the banks and the Conte government to demand that production workers stay on the job and continue working despite the threat that the disease could claim millions of lives.

In the 2024 ITUC Global Rights Index, Italy is ranked among the world’s worst offenders of workers’ rights—including the imposition of disproportionate restrictions on the fundamental rights of workers to strike, alongside Algeria, Armenia, Costa Rica, Senegal, and Thailand.

No confidence can be placed with the bourgeois Italian parties and trade unions to stop the carnage of injuries and deaths on the job.