Tens of thousands of federal employees who were fired during their probationary periods have their jobs back — on paper, anyway. In court-mandated filings Monday night, the Trump administration gave agency-by-agency details on the employees it has reinstated since late last week, when two separate federal judges found that the en-masse terminations of probationary federal workers were illegal. Taken together, the filings, which cover most federal civilian agencies, show that 24,583 probationary employees were terminated as part of the administration’s sweeping layoffs. Of those, 24,570 have at least been notified that their jobs have been reinstated, though most agencies have placed the workers on administrative leave at least temporarily. (Story continues below table) The filings, in a lawsuit filed by numerous states, provide the most detailed accounting to date of the administration’s mass layoffs of probationary employees. Notably, they exclude workers at the Defense Department and two much smaller agencies — the Office of Personnel Management and the National Archives and Records Administration — because the Maryland federal judge hearing the case determined the plaintiffs had not yet produced sufficient evidence that those agencies fired their probationary workers illegally. Because of that, those three agencies were not subject to that judge’s order that the employees be reinstated. In the Maryland case, the court found last Thursday that the mass firings amounted to illegal reductions in force (RIFs), because agencies did not follow legally-mandated RIF procedures, which include warning states of the economic impact of large-scale layoffs. Separately, on the same day, a San Francisco federal judge found the firings were illegal because they were directed by the Office of Personnel Management, which has no authority to direct hiring and firing at other agencies. In the California case — which does cover the Defense Department — the government contends OPM was merely issuing “guidance” to agencies, and that each agency carried out its terminations under its own authority. The administration is appealing the judge’s ruling to the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals, which on Monday, declined to pause the judge’s ruling at the earliest stage of the appeal. The administration has also appealed the Maryland ruling to the Fourth Circuit Court of Appeals, which so far has not issued any decisions on the government’s emergency application to pause that judge’s ruling. In both cases, the administration argued the court rulings were an impermissible intrusion on the executive branch’s authority to manage the federal workforce, and that reinstating the fired workers would create a huge logistical burden for agencies. Using mostly-identical language, agencies argued in Monday night’s filings that reinstating the employees would “cause significant confusion” and “cause turmoil” for the employees themselves. “All employees offered reinstatement into full duty status would have to be onboarded again, including filling out human resources paperwork, obtaining new security badges, re-enrolling in benefits programs and payroll, reinstituting applicable security clearance actions, receiving government furnished equipment, and other requisite administrative actions, such as auditing personnel requests to ensure any actions that would have otherwise been taken during their period of separation are completed,” read one of the filings, by Anne Byrd, the assistant secretary for administration at the Department of Transportation. “Additionally, an appellate ruling could reverse the district court’s order shortly after terminated employees have been reinstated (via administrative leave or otherwise) or have returned to duty status. In short, employees could be subjected to multiple changes in their employment status in a matter of weeks.” Most agencies said they were placing their fired probationary workers in administrative leave status while their reinstatements are processed, though some said their workers had now been fully rehired. In the California case, however, Judge William Alsup indicated that administrative leave, and not full reemployment, would violate his order to reinstate fired workers, which applied to the departments of Veterans Affairs, Agriculture, Defense, Energy, Interior and Treasury. He gave the government until noon Pacific Time on Tuesday to provide further details. “The court has read news reports that, in at least one agency, probationary employees are being rehired but then placed on administrative leave en masse. This is not allowed by the preliminary injunction, for it would not restore the services the preliminary injunction intends to restore. Defendants shall state the extent to which any rehired probationary employees are being placed on administrative leave,” he wrote in a Thursday order.The post 25,000 fired feds reinstated after courts find probationary terminations illegal first appeared on Federal News Network.

Summary of the History and Impact of the Civil Rights Act

A public resource tracking the legal challenges to the Trump administration's executive orders and actions.