Trump Sued Over Order Making It Easier to Fire Federal Staff

Probationary periods are essential tools for agencies to assess employee performance and staffing levels,

said a memo from White House Office of Personnel Management Acting Director Charles Ezell seen by Reuters

Any recruiters seeking to fill positions on behalf of the government must cease correspondence with candidates no later than January 21,

the memo dated Monday said

Yesterday’s Executive Order is a dangerous step backward to a political spoils system that Congress expressly rejected 142 years ago, which is why we are suing to have the order declared unlawful,

said the NTEU national president Doreen Greenwald

Lee Saundersamerican labor union activist

Putting the job security of non-partisan, dedicated public service workers in the hands of billionaires and anti-union extremists is unacceptable,

said Lee Saunders, president of the American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees (AFSCME), the largest public employee union in the US

There’s really no such thing, in the vast majority of context, as the resident just saying, ‘I’m going to treat this law as void,’

added Jordan Ascher, a policy counsel at Governing for Impact, who predicted legal challenges at “every step … from rescinding the rule to creating these lists of employees to actually firing people.”

President Trump’s attack on federal workers began on his first day in office,

she said

These numbers are unacceptable. It is the policy of this agency for employees to work at their duty station – whether in an office or in the field – to the maximum extent

Huffman said

Elon Muskbillionaire

Requiring federal employees to come to the office five days a week would result in a wave of voluntary terminations that we welcome,

Musk and his former DOGE co-head Vivek Ramaswamy wrote late last year in The Wall Street Journal

President Trump’s order is a blatant attempt to corrupt the federal government by eliminating employees’ due process rights so they can be fired for political reasons,

Everett Kelley, national president of the American Federation of Government Employees, which represents 750,000 workers, told CNN of the new order

The American people deserve to have government services delivered by qualified, nonpartisan professionals who do their job regardless of which party occupies the White House, and NTEU will fight to preserve that tradition,

the union’s national president, Doreen Greenwald, said in a statement

Any power they have is delegated by the President, and they must be accountable to the President, who is the only member of the executive branch … In recent years, however, there have been numerous and well-documented cases of career Federal employees resisting and undermining the policies and directives of their executive leadership,

the order reads

Accountability is essential for all Federal employees.”

In Monday’s executive order, he wrote

A goal is just to create this massive chilling effect across the federal government where people are in fear and just kind of obeying in advance, so to speak,

he said

Heads of all departments and agencies in the executive branch of Government shall, as soon as practicable, take all necessary steps to terminate remote work arrangements and require employees to return to work in-person at their respective duty stations on a full-time basis, provided that the department and agency heads shall make exemptions they deem necessary,

Trump's "Return To In-Person Work" executive action says

If federal employees don't want to show up, American taxpayers shouldn't pay them for the Covid-era privilege of staying home,

the op-ed read

President's new order forces government employees back to their desks, as advisers predict mass exodus from federal workforce. The strategy? Simple: Make them show up, watch them quit. Draining the swamp one empty desk at a time."

Conservative internet personality Mario Nawfal, in a post to X, formerly Twitter

Impartiality and professionalism are consistently related to positive performance outcomes, higher public trust and confidence, and lower levels of corruption [whereas] politicization was negatively related to government performance, employee work attitudes … and impartial administration, and positively related to corruption.”

Last year, after reviewing nearly 100 studies of government performance, a study in the journal Public Administration concluded

Donald Moynihanprofessor

In the hands of a president who is not committed to democratic norms, taking control of the bureaucracy is a tried and tested way to work toward authoritarian government,

Donald Moynihan, a professor of public policy at Georgetown University, told HuffPost in June

This memorandum shall be implemented consistent with applicable law,

it added

I think there’s going to be a lot of problems with government services falling apart,

Mr Bloom said