March 14 (UPI) — A federal judge on Thursday night ordered President Donald Trump to temporarily reinstate thousands of probationary employees at a dozen agencies, dealing another blow to his effort to reshape and downsize the federal government.
Judge James Bredar of the U.S. District Court for the District of Maryland issued a 14-day temporary restraining order in a case brought against the Trump administration earlier this month by Democratic attorneys general from 19 states and the District of Columbia.
The order concerns all probationary employees fired at 12 departments and six other agencies since Trump was inaugurated on Jan. 20.
Since Trump returned to the White House, federal agencies have been conducting mass firings of probationary workers, claiming they were being let go for performance reasons.
In the states’ lawsuit, filed March 6, the attorneys general argued the mass terminations were, in fact, a so-called reductions in force, which require federal agencies to provide employees and states with 60 days notice to ensure they are prepared for the shift in unemployment.
Bredar, a Barack Obama appointee, agreed.
“Lacking the notice to which they were entitled, the States weren’t ready for the impact of so many unemployed people. They are still scrambling to catch up. They remain impaired in their capacities to meet their legal obligations to their citizens,” he wrote in a memorandum supporting the order.
“Because the federal government’s recent discharge of thousands of probationary employees was not executed in compliance with rules intended to ensure that states are ready to bear the load cast upon them when mass layoffs occur, and because the Plaintiff States are not yet in fact so prepared, and this because of the violations, the recent directives of various federal agencies terminating probationary employees must be stayed.”
Employees that will be reinstated were fired from the departments of Agriculture, Commerce, Education, Energy, Health and Human Services, Homeland Security, Housing and Urban Development, Interior, Labor, Transportation and Treasury, Veterans Affairs.
The reinstatement also applies to employees let go from the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, Environmental Protection Agency, Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation, General Services Administration, Small Business Administration and the U.S. Agency for International Development.
The order, however, let’s stand firings at the Department of Defense, the Office of Personnel Management and Archives as the attorneys general provided “insufficient evidence” that those fourghloughs were reductions in force.
The move comes hours after a judge in California directed the White House to reinstate workers furloughed at half a dozen agencies.
“Because the federal government’s recent discharge of thousands of probationary employees was not executed in compliance with rules intended to ensure that states are ready to bear the load cast upon them when mass layoffs occur, and because the Plaintiff States are not yet in fact so prepared, and this because of the violations, the recent directives of various federal agencies terminating probationary employees must be stayed.”
Employees that will be reinstated were fired from the departments of Agriculture, Commerce, Education, Energy, Health and Human Services, Homeland Security, Housing and Urban Development, Interior, Labor, Transportation and Treasury, Veterans Affairs.
The reinstatement also applies to employees let go from the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, Environmental Protection Agency, Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation, General Services Administration, Small Business Administration and the U.S. Agency for International Development.
The order, however, let’s stand firings at the Department of Defense, the Office of Personnel Management and Archives as the attorneys general provided “insufficient evidence” that those fourghloughs were reductions in force.
That case was brought before the courts by several workers unions. Judge William Alsup‘s order affected fired employees at the departments of Agriculture, Defense, Energy, Interior, Veterans Affairs and Treasury.
