The Supreme Court earlier this month blocked an earlier order issued by the same judge who resurrected the laid-off employees.
A federal judge ordered the Trump administration to provide employees with written notices that they have not terminated for performance reasons but are part of a government-wide dismissal effort.
US District Judge William Alsup also ordered the acting director of the Personnel Management Office (OPM) Charles Ezell not to instruct the agency to terminate “federal employees or groups of federal employees.”
The judge wrote on April 18 that the shooting of the probationary worker followed an OPM template, which stated that he had been fired for job performance reasons.
“The ending under the false pretense of performance is a lasting injury for each civil servant’s working life,” writes San Francisco-based Allsup. “The stains created through the OPM pretenses will continue through each employee throughout their careers and limit professional opportunities.”
The latest order from the judge is part of a lawsuit filed in February by trade unions and nonprofits who challenged mass shootings of thousands of probation workers under President Donald Trump.
Probation workers are usually newly promoted new hires or employees who must serve a 1-2 year court period before receiving full or permanent employment.
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“If a particular termination is actually carried out after an individual assessment of the employee’s performance or fitness, the agency’s Chief Human Resources Officer (or equivalent) may instead submit a declaration… under oaths and seals, which will support that termination and provide individual inference in favour of that termination.”
The court’s order included a technical legal assessment of the rights or status of several nonprofits to sue a shooting. The Supreme Court of Sonia Sotomayor and Ketanji Brown Jackson said they had expressed dissent and said they would maintain the judge’s order.
“In spite of this lack of legal authority, OPM has ordered federal agencies across the country, including the district, to wipe out the ranks of probation employees regardless of applicable law,” their complaints filed in February.
The judge’s “an extraordinary recovery order violates the separation of power, rogs into a single district court, and the power of personnel management on the thinnest grounds and the most rushing timeline of the administrative agency,” the government’s lawyer wrote. “That’s not how we run government.”
Separately, a federal judge in Maryland oversees similar cases brought by 19 states, finds the Trump administration is not following laws relating to massive termination of federal employees.
The Associated Press contributed to this report.
