A federal judge in California has ordered the Trump administration to immediately reinstate thousands of probationary federal workers fired as part of billionaire Elon Musk’s campaign to slash the government workforce.
A federal judge in Maryland issued a similar ruling the same day, March 13.
Two days before the judges’ orders, the Department of Agriculture on March 11 issued a temporary stay on the firings, which applies to U.S. Forest Service workers.
The department’s job-reinstatement decision follows an order issued March 5 by the U.S. Merit Systems Protection Board staying terminations by the Forest Service and some other federal agencies “in which there are reasonable grounds to believe that each of the six agencies engaged in a prohibited personnel practice” by firing all probationary workers en masse, without cause.
“The department will work quickly to develop a phased plan for return-to-duty, and while those plans materialize, all probationary employees will be paid,” the Department of Agriculture said in its March 11 announcement.
About 3,400 Forest Service workers across the nation were affected in the mass terminations in mid-February, as were workers with many other federal agencies.
In Wrangell, seven employees were fired in the February purge, about one-quarter of the ranger district staff.
In Sitka, eight Forest Service employees were fired, including all on the cabin and trails crew and one managing a salmon weir, among others.
While many of the fired Forest Services employees in Alaska have been directed to come back to work, including some in Wrangell, the agency has not confirmed any numbers — or whether the rehires will be permanent.
“By Wednesday, March 12, the Department (of Agriculture) will place all terminated probationary employees in pay status and provide each with back pay, from the date of termination,” according to the department’s March 11 announcement.
The stay will last for 45 days, but the announcement did not offer details on what will follow when that ends.
Judge William Alsup of the U.S. District Court in California ruled on March 13 that tens of thousands of workers must be rehired across numerous federal agencies, including the departments of Agriculture, Defense, Energy, Interior, Treasury and Veterans Affairs, extending his previous temporary emergency order issued Feb. 28.
Alsup ruled in favor of numerous plaintiffs that brought the suit against the Trump administration’s Office of Personnel Management.
The order also prohibits the personnel office from advising any federal agency on which employees to fire. Additionally, Alsup is requiring the agencies to provide documentation of compliance to the court, according to the plaintiffs who were present in the courtroom.
The Trump administration appealed the decision just hours later.
The plaintiffs, which include the American Federation of Government Employees, AFL-CIO and other unions representing thousands of federal workers, sued in February over the “illegal program” terminating employees who are within the first year of their positions or recently promoted to new posts.
The personnel office, the Feb. 19 complaint said, “certainly has no authority to require agencies to perpetrate a massive fraud on the federal workforce by lying about federal workers’ ‘performance,’ to detriment of those workers, their families and all those in the public and private sectors who rely upon those workers for important services.”
Musk, a Trump special adviser, has publicly and repeatedly touted the terminations as a means to cut federal spending.
Mass firings began in early to mid-February and continued as recently as March 11 when the Department of Education announced it would cut about 50% of its workforce.
The Sitka Sentinel contributed reporting for this story. States Newsroom is the nation’s largest state-focused nonprofit news organization.
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