Demonstrators rally in support of federal workers outside of the Department of Health and Human Services in Washington on Feb. 14, 2025. (Mark Schiefelbein/AP)
WASHINGTON — A federal judge in California ordered the immediate rehiring of thousands of probationary workers fired from their jobs at the departments of Veterans Affairs, Defense, Interior, Energy, Treasury and Agriculture.
Judge William Alsup ruled the Office of Personnel Management and its acting director, Charles Ezell, acted unlawfully when they ordered mass job terminations of the new workers, according to a statement from the workers’ unions that challenged the firings. OPM serves as the federal government’s human resources agency.
The workers were terminated as part of President Donald Trump’s executive order to shrink the size of the federal workforce. The federal government employs more than 2 million people.
The American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees, along with other labor unions, had filed a lawsuit in the District Court for the Northern District of California challenging the mass firings by the Office of Personnel Management.
Other plaintiffs in the case include the American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees, the Coalition to Protect America’s National Parks, the United Nurses Associations of California/Union of Health Care Professionals, American Public Health Association and American Geophysical Union.
The lawsuit provided background on how the mass firings were carried out at the direction of OPM. Agencies were told to use a “template email” to inform workers of their dismissal and state their job performance was the reason for the firing, according to the complaint.
The judge found the Office of Personnel Management lacked the authority to direct the six federal agencies to fire their new employees.
Alsup said the six agencies from which approximately 30,000 workers were fired in mid-February must provide a compliance report to the court for rehiring the workers and halt plans for additional firings of probationary workers, effective immediately.
“The Trump administration will immediately fight back against this absurd and unconstitutional order,” White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt said Thursday, according to The Associated Press.
Alsup rejected arguments from the Justice Department that Ezell was only offering advice to the federal agencies and did not direct the firings when he sent a written memo and made a phone call to department leaders about firing new workers with less than a year or two of employment.
Ezell sent directions in a memo to agencies that included language for dismissing the new workers for performance reasons. According to a sworn written statement to the court last week, Ezell said the directions were offered as guidance only.
The memo provided language for the firings that stated: “The agency finds, based on your performance, that you have not demonstrated that your further employment at the agency would be in the public interest.”
Ezell submitted a sworn written statement to the court Feb. 26 that outlined his actions. But the Justice Department refused to make Ezell available to testify Thursday, after the judge requested his appearance.
“The court finds that Office of Personnel Management did direct all agencies to terminate probationary employees with the exception of mission critical employees,” Alsup said at the end of the two-hour hearing, CNN reported.
The decision was made from the bench with a written order to follow this week or early next week.
“It is a sad, sad day when our government would fire some good employee and say it was based on performance when they know good and well that’s a lie. That should not have been done in our country. It was a sham in order to avoid statutory requirements,” Alsup said, according to multiple news outlets.
The judge also ordered any future terminations must be conducted by the agencies themselves and follow regulations outlined in the Civil Service Reform Action and Reduction in Force Act.
Danielle Leonard, an attorney representing the fired workers, described the ruling as an important first step in holding the Trump administration “accountable for these unlawful acts.”
In the judge’s ruling, he forbade the Office of Personnel Management from giving future guidance to federal agencies about which employees should be terminated.
“AFGE will keep fighting until all federal employees who were unjustly and illegally fired are given their jobs back,” said Everett Kelley, national president of the American Federation of Government Employees.
