A federal judge in California granted a preliminary injunction to reinstate thousands of fired probationary workers at federal agencies as part of a lawsuit filed by the American Federation of Government Employees.
The ruling by the judge William H Alsup in the US district court for the northern district of California applies to fired probationary employees at the Department of Defense, Department of Veterans Affairs, Department of Agriculture, Department of Energy, Department of the Interior and the Department of the Treasury.
Hours later, the US district judge James Bredar in Maryland agreed with 20 Democratic-led states that 18 agencies that had fired probationary employees en masse in recent weeks had violated regulations governing the laying off of federal workers.
At least 30,000 probationary employees working for the federal government have been fired as part of the efforts of Donald Trump and Elon Musk’s so-called “department of government efficiency” to slash the federal workforce and government expenditures.
Many of the employees were fired with the cited reason being poor performance, though workers have disputed this based on positive performance evaluations.
Alsup said it was a “lie” that the probationary workers who were fired had performance issues.
“It is sad, a sad day when our government would fire some good employee and say it was based on performance when they know good and well that’s a lie,” Alsup said in court on Thursday.
The judge also forbade the office of personnel management from providing any guidance to federal agencies on which employees should be terminated. Alsup authorized depositions and ordered further briefing on whether the administrative channel for fired workers to appeal their terminations is available or has been destroyed due to firings at the appeals board and office of special counsel personnel.
“[The] AFGE is pleased with Judge Alsup’s order to immediately reinstate tens of thousands 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,” Everett Kelley, national president of the union said in a statement.
“We are grateful for these employees and the critical work they do, and AFGE will keep fighting until all federal employees who were unjustly and illegally fired are given their jobs back.”
The White House press secretary, Karoline Leavitt, said on Thursday that the judge overstepped his bounds.
“A single judge is attempting to unconstitutionally seize the power of hiring and firing from the executive branch,” she said, adding: “The Trump administration will immediately fight back against this absurd and unconstitutional order.”
Before the judge’s order, the US Department of Justice had declined to make the acting head of the office of personnel management, Charles Ezell, available to testify on the firings in court.
In an earlier ruling, Alsup said on 27 February that the firing of probationary employees was illegal because the office of personnel management had no authority to order it.
The OPM updated the 20 January memo on probationary employees, which the American Federation of Government Employees argued reveals an admission it unlawfully directed the firings.
“OPM’s revision of its Jan 20 memo is a clear admission that it unlawfully directed federal agencies to carry out mass terminations of probationary employees – which aligns with Judge Alsup’s recent decision in our lawsuit challenging these illegal firings,” the union said in a statement earlier this month. “Every agency should immediately rescind these unlawful terminations and reinstate everyone who was illegally fired.”
