US judge blocks Trump's plan for mass firings of federal probationary workers

A federal judge on Thursday (February 27) ordered the US government to reverse mass firings that are part of Donald Trump and Elon Musk's plan to slash the government's workforce, media reported.

The ruling directs the Office of Personnel Management to withdraw directives sent to a number of federal agencies that resulted in thousands of staff being laid off.

The verdict came as a temporary relief to unions and advocacy groups which sued to stop the Trump administration's massive trimming of the federal workforce.

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Another blow to Trump

“The Office of Personnel Management does not have any authority whatsoever under any statute in the history of the universe to hire and fire employees at another agency,” US District Judge William Alsup said, according to The Washington Post.

“Congress has given the authority to hire and fire to the agencies themselves. The Department of Defense, for example, has statutory authority to hire and fire,” he said at the federal court in San Francisco.

The ruling is the latest legal blow to Trump's efforts to bring the US government to heel.

It comes days after another district judge on the West Coast blocked his ban on refugee admissions, and weeks after a court suspended his executive order overturning the constitutional guarantee of birthright citizenship.

‘No authority to terminate workers’

The complaint filed by five labour unions and five non-profit organisations is among multiple lawsuits pushing back on the administration's efforts to vastly shrink the federal workforce, which Trump has called bloated and sloppy. Thousands of probationary employees have already been fired and his administration is now aiming at career officials with civil service protection.

The plaintiffs say the Office of Personnel Management had no authority to terminate the jobs of probationary workers who generally have less than a year on the job. They also say the firings were predicated on a lie of poor performance by the workers.

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Lawyers for the government say the Office of Personnel Management did not direct the firings, but asked agencies to review and determine whether employees on probation were fit for continued employment. They also say that probationary employees are not guaranteed employment and that only the highest performing and mission-critical employees should be hired.

There are an estimated 200,000 probationary workers — generally employees who have less than a year on the job — across federal agencies. About 15,000 are employed in California, providing services ranging from fire prevention to veterans' care, the complaint says.