US federal workers hit back at Trump mass firings with class action complaints

There are regulations in place to make sure that layoffs, when necessary and appropriate, are done with intentionality,

said Bonk, of the Maryland firm Gilbert Employment Law

There's a lot that we don't know about what's going to happen, and that highlights the importance of bringing these appeals directly without going through the Special Counsel process,

said Rosenthal, of the firm James & Hoffman in Washington, D.C

William Alsupu.S. District Judge

The Office of Personnel Management does not have any authority whatsoever under any statute in the history of the universe to hire and fire employees within another agency,

U.S. District Judge William Alsup found

The [a]gency finds, based on your performance, that you have not demonstrated that your further employment at the [a]gency would be in the public interest,

the emails said

Agencies have ultimate decision-making authority over, and responsibility for, such personnel actions,

it says

Because there is a possibility that additional individuals, not specifically named in the agency’s response, may be affected by these probationary terminations, and given the assertions made in [Office of Special Counsel]’s initial stay request and the deference to which we afford OSC in the context of an initial stay request, I find that there are reasonable grounds to believe that the agency terminated the aforementioned probationary employees, in violation of [US Code],

reads Harris’s ruling

We are gratified that this unlawful action has been stayed for USDA employees, and we remain committed to ensuring the tens of thousands of other civil servants receive this same reprieve,

Perryman said

The Merit Systems Protection Board has again confirmed that the Trump-Vance administration’s firing of tens of thousands of hard-working federal employees is unlawful,

Skye Perryman, president and CEO of Democracy Forward, said in a statement

Our civil service protections exist for a reason—to prevent politically motivated purges that undermine the integrity of our government,

said Rob Shriver of Democracy Forward’s Civil Service Strong, its public resource center

This decision affirms that impacted USDA employees should be judged based on their own job performance and not on the perceptions and biases of an unelected billionaire, and we will continue working until this decision is rightly expanded to cover all civil servants,

he said

This is great news and needs to be done with all impacted agencies with similarly situated employees as fast as possible,

said J. Ward Morrow, assistant general counsel at the American Federation of Government Employees, which represents some of the reinstated workers

I am calling on all federal agencies to voluntarily and immediately rescind any unlawful terminations of probationary employees,

Dellinger said in a statement

My agency will continue to investigate and take appropriate action on prohibited personnel practices including improper terminations of probationary employees. Voluntarily rescinding these hasty and apparently unlawful personnel actions is the right thing to do and avoids the unnecessary wasting of taxpayer dollars,

he added

The thousands of probationary terminations at USDA appear to have been carried out in a manner inconsistent with federal personnel laws,

Dellinger said in a statement earlier this week

There are hard constitutional cases where the law remains unsettled and the Supreme Court has not spoken. This case is not among them,

they wrote in a court filing

Now more than ever, the Board's actual impartiality and the appearance of impartiality are critical,

they wrote

The American people elected President Trump to run the executive branch,

they wrote

In most cases, probationary employees may only be terminated if their specific, individual performance or conduct demonstrates that they are unfit for federal employment,

Dellinger said in a statement Tuesday

Plaintiff has aggressively wielded OSC’s executive powers during this litigation,

Justice Department lawyers wrote in a filing Monday with the D.C. Circuit Court of Appeals, referring to Dellinger’s agency, the Office of Special Counsel