SALEM, Ohio — Workers across key federal agencies, including the U.S. Department of Agriculture, are left wondering what will happen to their jobs now that a federal judge has ruled that the government’s mass firings of probationary workers were illegal.
U.S. District Judge William Alsup’s decision on Feb. 27 grants temporary relief to a group of labor unions and organizations that sued to stop what they described as an unprecedented purge of the federal workforce by the Trump administration.
The judge’s decision does not automatically reinstate fired workers or prevent future firings. It does, however, bolster the case for employees seeking reinstatement through the federal Merit Systems Protection Board and the Office of Special Counsel, which are investigating whether agencies should have followed reduction-in-force procedures rather than resorting to mass terminations, according to reporting by the Washington Post.
Court case
Alsup ordered the Office of Personnel Management to inform certain federal agencies that it had no authority to order the firings of probationary employees. But that office, led by Acting Director Charles Ezell, has maintained that it did not directly order the terminations. In a sworn declaration from Feb. 26, Ezell stated, “OPM did not direct agencies to terminate probationary employees, based either on performance or misconduct.”
Instead, he said the office issued guidance in evaluating employees and instructed supervisors to “promptly determine whether those employees should be retained at the agency.”
“Agencies made their own decisions about which probationary employees they wished to keep and which probationary employees they wished to terminate, and agencies took their own actions to terminate employees the agencies did not wish to retain,” Ezell wrote.
But, according to the Associated Press, Alsup raised concerns over a Feb. 13 phone call in which agency heads were, in fact, directly told to fire probationary employees.
What’s next
The ruling has significant implications for former probationary employees at multiple agencies and departments, including the USDA, who were dismissed. Employees who were terminated may now have stronger grounds to challenge their dismissals.
In response to the ruling, a USDA spokesperson told Farm and Dairy that Secretary Rollins is dutifully carrying out President Donald Trump’s directive to improve government, eliminate inefficiencies and strengthen USDA’s many services to the American people.
“We have a solemn responsibility to be good stewards of the American people’s hard-earned taxpayer dollars and to ensure that every dollar spent goes to serve the people, not the bureaucracy,” the spokesperson said. “As part of this effort, USDA has released individuals in their probationary period of employment who are not deemed essential. Secretary Rollins is committed to preserving essential safety positions and will ensure that critical services remain uninterrupted.”
For those who have been fired, however, the legal battle offers little comfort or assurance that their jobs will be restored.
