A MART脥NEZ, HOST:
Today, a federal judge in San Francisco hears arguments over whether the Trump administration's firing of thousands of probationary employees should be halted.
MICHEL MARTIN, HOST:
It is one of the many legal challenges the administration is coming up against as it moves forward with plans to downsize the federal workforce.
MART脥NEZ: NPR's Andrea Hsu is following all of this. So, Andrea, let's start with what's happening in court today. Who brought this lawsuit?
ANDREA HSU, BYLINE: Yeah. It was originally filed by several labor unions that represent federal workers who have been fired over the last several weeks. So nurses at the VA, for example, or people who worked for the Forest Service. These were employees who were still on probationary status, meaning usually their first or second year in that job.
And a lot of them were told that they were being fired for performance reasons, even though many of them had gotten positive performance reviews, and some weren't even on the job long enough to get a review. So the labor unions are arguing that the agencies themselves had no plans to fire these employees and only did so at the direction of the administration and specifically the Office of Personnel Management.
MART脥NEZ: All right. The Office of Personnel Management. That's something we've heard a lot lately. So remind us of what that is.
HSU: Yeah. OPM is the agency that handles HR functions for the federal workforce. But to be clear, its role is to provide guidance to agencies about how to hire and fire employees. It doesn't have the authority to actually hire and fire employees of other agencies. But under this administration, OPM has taken on a far bigger role. For instance, you remember that mass email that went out to the entire federal workforce last weekend asking, you know, what did you do last week? That came from OPM.
In fact, this lawsuit also includes a complaint about this email. The unions argue that OPM exceeded its authority in asking the entire federal workforce to report back what they accomplished and also in telling agencies to fire their probationary employees. President Trump has repeatedly argued that he's revamping the federal workforce in order to save American taxpayers' money and to clean up fraud and waste. But the unions' attorneys say there's a way to go about doing that legally, and this is not it.
MART脥NEZ: So apart from that lawsuit, I know you've reported on six fired workers who've been temporarily reinstated. Who are those workers?
HSU: Yeah. These are six employees at different federal agencies who were fired about two weeks ago, and they were part of a separate complaint that a different set of attorneys brought to the Office of Special Counsel. That's the federal watchdog agency that's responsible for protecting federal workers from illegal actions by the government. So the special counsel began looking into these firings and found evidence that agencies hadn't followed proper procedures for firing them, and the special counsel asked a separate federal board to issue a stay. And on Tuesday night, this week, the board granted that and ordered these six workers reinstated through April 10 so that the special counsel's investigation can continue.
MART脥NEZ: OK. Just - only six people?
HSU: Yeah, for now. The attorneys in the case, including Michelle Bercovici, have asked the special counsel to seek relief for, you know, many thousands of probationary workers who say they were fired in the exact same way. Here's what she said.
MICHELLE BERCOVICI: I mean, these are hardworking individuals. Not only are these just people who have a job, they're people who want to make this country better.
HSU: And the Office of Special Counsel, A, they have said that they're looking into ways to address a larger group of people who have been similarly fired. The office, though, doesn't normally pursue complaints like this, so this is really unprecedented, as are the firings that led to this investigation. And lastly, I'll just note that this week, we also saw the Trump administration issue guidance to agencies on further downsizing on deeper cuts that are ahead. So we may continue to see litigation there.
MART脥NEZ: All right, that's NPR's Andrea Hsu. Thanks a lot.
HSU: You're welcome. Transcript provided by NPR, Copyright NPR.
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