"Tens of thousands" of firings ordered by the Trump administration and tech billionaire Elon Musk's Department of Government Efficiency task force violate the law — and some of these workers could be reinstated within days, Government Executive reported on Monday.
"The Office of Special Counsel, the agency responsible for investigating illegal actions taken against federal employees, issued its decision for six employees, each at different agencies," reported senior correspondent Eric Katz. "It has not been made public and was provided to Government Executive by a source within the government. OSC, which did not provide the document to Government Executive, verified its authenticity."
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The order only directly applies to those six employees — however, the report noted, it could create a "wide-ranging" precedent, allowing many more workers terminated under the same circumstances to file to be reinstated.
The Trump administration and DOGE have focused most heavily on so-called "probationary" employees, who have been in their current positions for a short time and don't have the same civil service protections as most federal workers. While some probationary workers are completely new hires, many others have been in the civil service for decades and are on probationary status because they were recently transferred into other departments or even just promoted.
The stated reason for most of the firings is poor performance; however, many of the terminated employees received glowing performance reviews with no hints of complaints about their work.
A federal workers union recently filed a lawsuit alleging the firings were illegal. However, a U.S. District Judge denied their request, saying the court lacked jurisdiction over the matter and that the proper venue would be a complaint with the Federal Labor Relations Authority.