A San Francisco federal judge ordered the Trump administration to rehire thousands of the government’s newest employees who were terminated in February.
Judge William Alsup of the US District Court for the Northern District of California issued an injunction from the bench on Thursday finding the Office of Personnel Management’s order to federal agency heads to fire probationary employees was illegal.
“It is a sad day when our government would fire a good employee and say it was based on performance when they know good and well that is a lie,” the judge said. “That should not have been done in our country.”
The order requires the departments of defence, veterans affairs, energy, interior, agriculture and treasury to rehire the employees who were laid off around February 13th at the direction of the Office of Personnel Management (OPM), the federal government’s HR department.
The judge called the OPM’s template termination letter for agencies a “sham”. Each of the agencies must submit a list of terminated probationary employees to the court within a week explaining what has been done for each, he said.
The ruling is a blow to the Trump administration’s campaign to quickly shrink the size of the federal workforce. Federal worker lay-offs are expected to reach into the hundreds of thousands in coming weeks.
Judge Alsup had previously ordered a temporary pause on any additional agency lay-offs at the direction of OPM or its acting director Charles Ezell.
It is likely the Trump administration will appeal Thursday’s order.
At the hearing on Thursday, Judge Alsup criticised the government’s handling of the firings and the subsequent litigation. He pointed to evidence of agencies firing employees under the auspices of low performance when in fact they had just received glowing reviews.
The judge, a Bill Clinton appointee, also condemned the government’s decision to refuse to make Mr Ezell available to testify on Thursday about the decision-making behind the OPM’s directive to agencies.
Mr Ezell should have faced cross-examination so that “we get to the truth”, the judge told the government’s attorney at the Thursday hearing.
“I tend to doubt that you’re telling me the truth,” he said.
Mr Trump’s press secretary and the OPM didn’t immediately return requests for comment. The plaintiffs called it an “important victory” for federal workers.
Federal employees are finding other openings to overturn the terminations.
The Merit Systems Protection Board (MSPB), which mediates disputes between federal workers and their employers, ordered the US Department of Agriculture to temporarily reinstate more than 5,000 terminated employees while an independent commission investigates their firing.
The future of that commission, the Office of Special Counsel, is up in the air after Mr Trump fired its leader, Hampton Dellinger, who recently withdrew his lawsuit challenging the termination.
Mr Trump also fired MSPB member Cathy Harris, a Democrat, making it harder for a number of weeks for the board to make decisions. A federal judge reinstated her.
The Trump administration is appealing that ruling. The typically three-member panel now has one Republican and one Democrat, after the third member’s term expired. Mr Trump has the opportunity to give the board a Republican majority by nominating a third member.
Four law firms are separately urging the MSPB to reinstate workers fired by 19 agencies, including the departments of Homeland Security and Health and Human Services. The San Francisco judge didn’t include either agency in his Thursday order.
– Bloomberg
