A California-based federal judge has said that the Trump administration’s mass firing of federal employees is unlawful and should be stopped immediately.
According to National Public Radio, U.S. District Judge William Alsup said that the U.S. Office of Personnel Management must rescind directives ordering federal agencies to fire their probationary employees.
Alsup issued his temporary restraining order on Thursday. It covers a wide range of federal agencies, including the Department of Veterans Affairs, the National Park Service, the Small Business Administration, the Bureau of Land Management, the Department of Defense, and the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service.
The lawsuit was filed on behalf of federal labor unions and advocacy organizations.
“Statements from officials at multiple federal agencies admit that the agencies carried out the terminations not at their own discretion, but on direct orders of OPM,” the lawsuit alleges.
Attorneys say that, while Office of Personnel Management handles many human resources functions for the federal workforce, it does not have any congressionally-mandated authority to manage employees in and across different agencies.
“The agency has no authority to tell any other agency in the U.S. government who it can hire and fire, period,” Alsup said.
In its own defense, the federal government said that the Office of Personnel Management had asked—but not ordered—other agencies to fire their probationary employees.
“Asking is not ordering,” Assistant U.S. Attorney Kelsey Helland said.
Alsup questioned whether agencies felt they had any choice in complying with the OPM’s request.
“How could so much of the workforce be amputated suddenly overnight? It’s so irregular and widespread, so aberrant in the history of the country,” Alsup said. “I believe they were directed or ordered. That’s the way the evidence points.”
Although Alsup acknowledged that some of the government’s arguments have merit, he said it so far appears that the plaintiffs are entitled to relief.
“I’m going to count on the government to do the right thing and go further than I have ordered and to let some of these agencies know what I have ruled,” Alsup said.
Alsup emphasized that probationary employees—workers in their first or second year of employment with the federal government—are the “lifeblood of our government,” often motivated young people committed to improving policy.
Firing probationary employees, Alsup said, would most likely hurt federal agencies’ missions.
Everett Kelley, the national president of the American Federation of Government Employees, said that Alsup’s decision is a victory for workers who were “illegally fired” from their positions by an agency with “no authority to do so.”
“These are rank-and-file workers who joined the federal government to make a difference in their communities, only to be suddenly terminated due to this administration’s disdain for federal employees and desire to privatize their work,” Kelley said.
Sources
Judge says Trump’s mass firing of federal employees is illegal and should be stopped
US judge says mass firings of some federal workers likely illegal
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