A government agency tasked with investigating improper employment practices within the federal government dismissed around 2,000 wrongful termination complaints filed by fired probationary workers.
The Office of Special Counsel, led by President Donald Trump’s trade representative Jamieson Greer, stated that the complaints lacked merit, according to Axios. Trump fired the previous OSC head, Hampton Dellinger, an appointee of President Joe Biden, in February. Dellinger challenged his firing, but later dropped his case.
The 2,000 fired probationary employees are among tens of thousands of government employees terminated by the Trump administration, prompting wrongful termination lawsuits.
“This is a devastating letdown to the civil service and to the principle that government should serve the public, not political interests,” Rob Shriver, managing director of Democracy Forward’s Civil Service Strong initiative, said in a statement.
Instead, the fired probationary employees could bring their complaints to the Merit Systems Protection Board, a federal agency that protects against “partisan political and other prohibited personnel practices.”
WHAT IS DOGE? WHAT TO KNOW ABOUT THE DEPARTMENT OF GOVERNMENT EFFICIENCY
The Trump administration’s mass firings are part of the president’s effort to shrink the federal government. Through the “Fork in the Road” initiative — a program that offered employees benefits through September if they resigned — and planned cuts, the administration is projecting a 12% reduction in the federal workforce.
There have been 56,230 confirmed cuts, 76,100 employees who took the buyouts, and at least 146,320 planned reductions, according to data collected by the New York Times.