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Last month, there were reports that the Trump administration had fired an unknown number of probationary federal employees. Immediately there were claims from a lawyer opposing the firings that these actions were illegal.
Firing employees en masse with the same claim of poor performance is illegal, said Jim Eisenmann, a partner at the Alden Law Group, a law firm specializing in litigation by federal employees. It violates federal law covering career civil service employees, he said.
“It can’t be true,” Eisenmann said. “They’re clearly not articulating this on an individual basis, which is what makes it so suspect.”
OPM responded that probationary hires don’t have the same protections as regular government employees.
OPM also offered a template notice agencies could send to fired workers. It read in part: “The Agency finds, based on your performance, that you have not demonstrated that your further employment at the Agency would be in the public interest.” Federal law gives agencies wide latitude to fire probationary workers so long as they provide written notice “as to why he is being separated [and] the agency’s conclusions as to the inadequacies of his performance or conduct.”
All of this was immediately headed to court and today a California federal judged ordered that at least six agencies must rehire those fired probationary employees.
A federal judge in California on Thursday ordered that the departments of Veterans Affairs, Defense, Energy, Interior, Agriculture and Treasury reinstate thousands probationary employees who were terminated last month.
