A recent ruling from an independent federal agency has mandated the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) to reinstate nearly 6,000 employees dismissed since February 13. The Merit Systems Protection Board (MSPB) found reasonable grounds to believe the agency acted unlawfully in terminating these workers.
The MSPB has issued a 45-day stay, requiring USDA to reinstate the dismissed employees while an investigation into the firings is conducted. The MSPB serves as a judicial body to review complaints from federal employees regarding government actions.
This order, issued by board member Cathy Harris, impacts probationary employees who received standardized termination notices citing insufficient performance and lack of public interest in keeping them employed.
Since February, the federal government, under the Trump administration, has seen mass terminations of probationary employees, specifically targeting those in their initial years of service.
The stay follows a request from the U.S. Office of Special Counsel (OSC), which is looking into the circumstances of these mass firings. This decision echoes a previous action that temporarily reinstated six probationary workers from various agencies, allowing them to continue working through at least April 10, as confirmed by their legal representative.
OSC Special Counsel Hampton Dellinger emphasized that all federal agencies should take proactive steps to reinstate affected probationary employees, even absent a formal directive.
“Agencies are best positioned to determine the employees affected by these mass terminations,” Dellinger stated, urging them to immediately reverse any unlawful dismissals of probationary staff.
The OSC, which investigates government misconduct against federal workers, operates independently from special counsels assigned by the Justice Department.
Investigation of USDA Fuels Call for Stay
Dellinger’s request for a broad stay was prompted by insights gained regarding the abrupt termination of nearly 6,000 employees.
“Documents obtained by OSC and interviews with USDA officials indicated that the agency heavily relied on guidelines from the Office of Personnel Management (OPM) when terminating probationary staff,” Dellinger remarked.
He concluded that USDA did not adequately consider employee performance but rather based terminations on whether their roles were deemed “mission-critical,” as suggested by OPM guidance, using a template letter provided by the agency.
Dellinger criticized USDA for misusing the probationary status of employees to reduce its workforce, thereby bypassing the standard protocols for mass layoffs that necessitate notifying employees 60 days in advance.
At USDA and across other federal entities, the Trump administration is actively pursuing workforce reductions amid growing legal challenges against the widespread termination of probationary employees.
While USDA reported a total of 5,950 firings to the OSC in February, the recent order from Harris references only 5,692 employees. The OSC noted that this number is subject to change due to ongoing corrections, rehirings, and adjustments to mission-critical designations.
Both Dellinger and Harris have faced their own challenges, having been dismissed by the Trump administration before being reinstated by court orders recognizing the illegitimacy of their firings.
A separate legal case regarding the administration’s mass dismissals of probationary employees is progressing in federal court, with a judge in San Francisco recently determining that the firings likely contravene several regulations. Additionally, OPM has retracted a memo issued in January, clarifying that it does not mandate specific personnel actions, thereby leaving the decision-making responsibility with individual agencies.
