Federal Judge Rules Trump’s Mass Firings Illegal
A California federal judge ruled that the Office of Personnel Management (OPM) illegally ordered the firing of thousands of probationary federal employees, lacking the statutory authority to do so. The judge deemed OPM’s claim that the terminations were performance-based to be false and ordered the agency to rescind its directive. While the ruling prevents several specified agencies from conducting the OPM-ordered layoffs, it does not guarantee reinstatement for fired employees, nor does it halt all planned terminations. The judge’s decision was welcomed by labor unions as a crucial first step in protecting federal workers from what they described as baseless terminations driven by an anti-union agenda.
John Q. Hosedrinker