Thousands of fired federal workers must be offered reinstatement, a judge rules

Thousands of federal employees fired by the Trump administration must be offered job reinstatement within the next week, a U.S. district judge in San Francisco has ruled, because they were terminated unlawfully.

"It is a sad day when our government would fire some good employee and say it was based on performance when they know good and well that is a lie," the judge, William Alsup, an appointee of former President Bill Clinton, said before issuing his ruling from the bench.

The administration's job cuts targeted federal workers with probationary status, which usually means newer workers, and makes them easier to let go. Employees recently promoted into a new position can also be considered probationary.

Many probationary employees were fired for "performance reasons," according to their termination notices, a reason the court rejected in its ruling on Thursday.

"It was a sham in order to try to avoid statutory requirements," Alsup said.

The judge also ordered the U.S. Office of Personnel Management (OPM) to prove within seven days that it had offered reinstatement to all probationary employees at at least six government agencies: the Departments of Agriculture, Defense, Energy, Interior, Treasury, and Veterans Affairs.

The decision comes as a result of a lawsuit brought by a group of unions and civic groups on behalf of workers fired from a host of agencies and sub-agencies.

In a charged, sometimes-confrontational court hearing on Thursday, Judge Alsup challenged the government's argument that OPM had not directly ordered the termination of probationary employees but had left that decision to individual federal agencies and served merely as a coordinating body.

"The court rejects the government's attempt to use these press releases and to read between the lines to say the agency heads made their own decision with no direction from OPM," Alsup said.

The judge also bridled that OPM's acting director, Charles Ezell, and his senior adviser, Noah Peters, did not attend the hearing.

"You will not bring the people in here to be cross-examined. You're afraid to do so because you know, cross-examination would reveal the truth," Alsup said, addressing OPM's legal team. "I tend to doubt that you're telling me the truth."

Earlier this month, the same judge issued a temporary restraining order in the same case, saying the firings were illegal but noted many federal agencies had yet to rehire probationary workers. "Maybe that's why we need an injunction that tells them to rehire them," he said.

NPR's Andrea Hsu contributed to this report.
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