A Federal High Court in California has ordered six United States agencies to reinstate thousands of probationary employees, who were sacked as part of President Donald Trump’s effort to shrink the federal workforce.
The six agencies ordered to rehire the sacked employees immediately are, the U.S. Department of Defense, Department of Veterans Affairs, Department of Agriculture, Department of Energy, Department of the Interior, and the Treasury Department.
In his ruling on Thursday, District Judge William Alsup barred the Office of Personnel Management (OPA) from issuing any guidance on employee terminations.
According to Alsup, the ruling was made because the OPM unlawfully instructed federal agencies to terminate probationary employees, who typically have less than a year of service, earlier this year.
“The court finds that Office of Personnel Management did direct all agencies to terminate probationary employees with the exception of mission-critical employees,” he said, rejecting arguments from the Justice Department that OPM merely issued “guidance” to the agencies that then led to the firings.
“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 added.
The judge’s order came barely two months after the American Federation of Government Employees, filed a lawsuit against the Trump-led administration for laying off the workers just a month after their employment.
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 “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.
