This breaches the union contract. Federal public employees are all in the union, mandatory membership by law, and work under contract. Gov can call it whatever they want. Under the labour laws it's a forced lockout by management. It doesn't matter how they try to classify it. They can't trick their way around the law. The legal precedent for this is firmly entrenched. It's a breach of the labour contract. So, it's going to go to arbitration. The government will lose, and they will be forced to pay full back pay. They might get penalized on top of that. Depends on the arbitrator. If they want to terminate people they have the right to do that, and pay out accordingly. They do not have the right to just put people on unpaid leave.