A coalition of federal employee unions urged the Supreme Court Thursday not to interfere with a federal judge’s sweeping order reinstating more than 16,000 probationary federal employees fired earlier this year under a Trump administration workforce directive.
In a 40-page filing Thursday, the groups led by the American Federation of Government Employees said President Donald Trump’s administration has exaggerated the burden of reemploying workers who were, until recently, fully credentialed and trained.
“It strains credulity that returning employees to work would cause irreparable harm,” they wrote, “when these employees had the same workplaces, credentials, benefits, and training just a few weeks ago.”
The case stems from a February move by department heads in the Trump administration to lay off tens of thousands of probationary employees across six agencies as part of an effort to streamline the federal workforce. The Office of Personnel Management was accused of directing agencies to fire workers en masse under the guise of poor performance — guidance a federal judge later deemed misleading and unauthorized, though the Justice Department has argued the OPM guidance was merely discretionary.
On March 14, Senior District Judge William Alsup issued a preliminary injunction requiring the departments of Veterans Affairs, Agriculture, Defense, Energy, the Interior, and the Treasury to reinstate affected workers immediately. He found a “mountain of evidence” that OPM pushed agencies to fire workers under false pretenses, even though the DOJ issued a revised memorandum clarifying the decision to fire was up to the agencies, not OPM.
Attorneys for the union plaintiffs disputed the government’s position about that memorandum on Thursday.
“Even after the [temporary restraining order] was entered and OPM issued its revised memorandum, the Government still presented no evidence that the agencies were now aware that they, rather than OPM, had authority to decide whether to terminate probationary employees,” plaintiffs’ counsel wrote. “The district court made a specific finding about the absence of such proof: ‘OPM submits no evidence suggesting that the federal agencies—some of which have continued to terminate probationers—are now acting at their own discretion.’”
Three days after Alsup’s preliminary injunction, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 9th Circuit refused to pause Alsup’s ruling while the government appealed, prompting acting Solicitor General Sarah Harris to ask the Supreme Court to intervene. Harris warned that Alsup’s decision effectively puts six executive agencies “under the district court’s receivership.”
Justice Department lawyers argue that the plaintiffs, which are largely nonprofit organizations representing veterans and federal employees, lack standing to sue and that only individual employees can challenge their dismissals through the Merit Systems Protection Board. Alsup rejected that argument, saying the mass firings likely circumvented federal protections.
DOJ ASKS SUPREME COURT TO HALT REINSTATEMENT OF 16,000 PROBATIONARY EMPLOYEES
Trump slammed Alsup’s ruling last month, saying, “It’s a judge that’s putting himself in the position of the president.”
Another federal court in Maryland has also blocked similar terminations affecting workers in 19 states and the District of Columbia. The 4th Circuit declined to stay that order as well, undermining the government’s claim of irreparable harm.