Judge Orders Temporary Stop to Probationary Employee Firings

On Feb. 12, an NTEU-led coalition of unions filed a lawsuit in Washington, D.C., challenging the administration’s efforts to break the government by, among other actions, arbitrarily firing probationary and trial employees.

In connection with the lawsuit, the coalition filed for a temporary restraining order to stop the administration from firing additional probationary and trial employees. Although the coalition made a strong case, the judge unfortunately denied the request for emergency relief saying that he believed the unions would have to bring their case elsewhere.

Shortly after our hearing, several sister unions filed a lawsuit in California, raising many of the same arguments that we made in our earlier case. They also filed for emergency relief in California.Those efforts were an attempt to avoid a similarly unfavorable decision in Washington, D.C.

Tonight, the judge in California issued an order granting the unions’ request for temporary emergency relief. The judge ordered the Office of Personnel Management to rescind directives that initiated the mass firing of probationary government workers in several agencies across the government, ruling that the terminations were probably illegal.

The scope of the order is not yet known. The judge said at hearing that he hoped the government would let other agencies know about his ruling.

The ruling does not reinstate dismissed employees. We will continue to challenge those dismissals in every possible forum.

It is extremely likely that the government will appeal the judge’s order. We will keep you informed as this and other litigation progresses.