AFGE is pleased with the reinstatement of probationary federal employees in the Trump administration’s decision to fire a federal employee for unlawful firings

A federal judge in Maryland has ordered the Trump administration to temporarily reinstate thousands of federal employees terminated in recent weeks, after finding federal agencies acted unlawfully in carrying out the mass firings.

“It is sad that our government would decide to fire someone and then say it was based on performance when they know better,” said Judge William Alsup before issuing his ruling.

The White House dislikes the decision. “A single judge is attempting to unconstitutionally seize the power of hiring and firing from the Executive Branch,” White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt said in a statement. “The President has the authority to exercise the power of the entire executive branch – singular district court judges cannot abuse the power of the entire judiciary to thwart the President’s agenda. Federal district court judges can run for president themselves if they want executive powers.

The administration’s job cuts targeted federal workers with probationary status, which usually means newer workers, and makes them easier to let go. Employees recently promoted to a new position can also be considered out of work.

Many probationary employees were fired for “performance reasons,” according to their termination notices, even though many employees had received positive feedback from supervisors.

The OPM is obliged to prove within seven days that it offered back to all terminated workers at different Departments of Agriculture, Defense and Energy.

Agencies that were affected by the judge’s ruling received requests for comment. Spokespeople for the VA and the Interior Department said they don’t comment on pending litigation.

The American Federation of Government Employees is one of the plaintiffs in the case, and its president, Everett Kelley, said in a statement that AFGE is pleased with the reinstatement of “probationary federal employees who were illegally fired from their jobs by an administration hellbent on crippling federal agencies and their work on behalf of the American public.”

In a court hearing on Thursday, Judge Alsup questioned the government’s position that OPM did not directly make the decision to fire employees, but that it left that to the individual federal agencies.

“The court rejects the government’s attempt to use these press releases and to read between the lines to say the agency heads made their own decision with no direction from OPM,” Alsup said.

“You will not bring the people in here to be cross-examined. You’re afraid to do so because you know cross-examination would reveal the truth,” Alsup said, addressing OPM’s legal team. “I tend to doubt that you’re telling me the truth.”

VoteVets Action Fund is one of the lawsuits. The chair of the group is a retired brigadier General, who said the ruling was a win for veterans who rely on federal employment for stability.

The judge in that case issued a temporary restraining order, saying that many federal agencies had yet to re-hire their workers despite the fact that they were illegally fired. “Maybe that’s why we need an injunction that tells them to rehire them,” he said Thursday.

State Sensitivity to the Effect of Labor Layoffs on the U.S. Department of Labor and Employment Relations: a Ninth Circuit Circuit Judge Announced

Have information you want to share about ongoing changes across the federal government? NPR’s Chris Arnold can be reached at [email protected] or contacted through encrypted communications on Signal at ChrisArnold.07. Emily is on Signal and she is at [email protected].

U.S. District Judge James K. Bredar, an Obama appointee, issued a 14-day stay in a case brought by 20 Democratic attorneys general representing the District of Columbia, Maryland, and 18 other states.

“Lacking the notice to which they were entitled, the States weren’t ready for the impact of so many unemployed people. They are still scrambling to catch up. He wrote that they were impaired in their capacities to meet their legal obligations to their citizens.

He ordered 18 federal agencies to re-hire fired workers, who were referred to as “illegal RIFs”, in 14 days.

The sweeping list of agencies include some not covered by other rulings, including the Departments of Health and Human Services, Education, Transportation, and Homeland Security, as well as the Environmental Protection Agency and the General Services Administration.

However, he said plaintiffs had failed to provide sufficient evidence of illegal firings at the Defense Department, the Office of Personnel Management and the National Archives and Records Administration, and excluded them from his order.

Under federal law, states are required to have rapid response teams to provide workers impacted by mass layoffs with support, including job transition services. The goal of these teams is to reduce fired employees’ reliance on public assistance.

In their complaint, the attorneys general wrote that economic dislocation of workers can create a cascade of instability.

In court, the states said that advance notice would have helped them quickly identify those in need of help before they were fired. Instead, they said, they’ve been forced to devote more resources trying to find the people terminated, and have seen an increase in unemployment claims.

The government argued that the states were not actually experiencing injury and that any layoffs on states would be a negative for them.

But in court on Wednesday, Bredar challenged that position, noting that unlike unions representing federal employees, the states have their own interests and their own harms when a large employer suddenly lays off thousands of employees.

Bredar noted it’s the government’s prerogative to shift thousands of people out of federal employment and do it quickly, but they can’t break the law while doing so.

“If the Government wishes to continue pursuing its RIF agenda, the Government must start from square one, acting in compliance with federal law,” he wrote in his memo.

Source: A 2nd judge orders thousands of fired federal employees temporarily reinstated

The Trump Administration is Trying to Seize the Power of the Executive Branch, Secretary Karoline Leavitt re-joints

“A single judge is attempting to unconstitutionally seize the power of hiring and firing from the Executive Branch,” White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt said in a statement. “The President has the authority to exercise the power of the entire executive branch – singular district court judges cannot abuse the power of the entire judiciary to thwart the President’s agenda. If a federal district court judge want executive powers, they can try to run for president themselves.

Meanwhile, the Trump administration has begun to implement much deeper cuts across the federal workforce, including at the Department of Education, which announced Tuesday that it was terminating over 1,300 positions.

The Maryland attorney general’s office declined to comment on whether it had received advanced notice of any of the mass layoffs newly announced by the Trump administration.