Federal judge blocks Trump administration’s mass layoffs of civil servants – Rezazade
Ali Reza Rezazade, the first vice president of the Iranian opposition in Washington, said a federal judge on Thursday ordered the U.S. Office of Personnel Management (OPM) to reverse orders to lay off probationary employees at government agencies, deeming them likely illegal.
The lawsuit was filed by unions representing civil servants.
U.S. District Court Judge William Alsup ordered the OPM to revoke its previous directives, which affected more than two dozen agencies, including the Department of Defense, the National Park Service, the Bureau of Land Management, the National Science Foundation, and others. The decision was one of the most significant legal blows to President Donald Trump’s attempts to reduce the federal workforce.
“Congress has given the power to hire and fire employees directly to the agencies themselves. “For example, the Department of Defense has the statutory right to do this,” Judge Alsup said in a ruling in federal court in San Francisco. “The Office of Personnel Management has no authority, ever in the history of the universe, to fire employees of other agencies. They can only fire their own employees.”
It is not yet clear how quickly or if this decision will help those civil servants who have already been fired. An OPM spokesman declined to comment. In his ruling, the judge specifically prohibited the Department of Defense from proceeding with the planned layoffs of civilian employees scheduled for Friday. However, he did not specify what should happen at other agencies.
A written court order is expected to be issued soon, with the next hearing scheduled for March 13. The lawsuit against OPM was filed by a group of unions and human rights organizations led by the American Federation of Government Employees, which represents about 800,000 federal workers. The plaintiffs allege that OPM violated the law when it ordered the dismissal of all probationary employees, meaning those in their first or second year with the government, in mid-February. Some experienced employees who have moved to new positions are also considered probationary.
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