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Federal employees who were recently fired from their jobs at the Department of Agriculture will soon be reinstated, at least temporarily, after the Merit Systems Protection Board found reasonable grounds that their terminations were unlawful.
MSPB has granted a 45-day stay on the firings of all probationary workers at USDA. MSPB’s decision means nearly 6,000 USDA employees who were removed from their jobs on or after Feb. 13 will be able to return to work until April 18, while the Office of Special Counsel continues investigating the agency’s actions.
“Particularly considering the deference that must be afforded to OSC at this initial stage, I find that there are reasonable grounds to believe that the agency engaged in a prohibited personnel practice,” MSPB Member Cathy Harris wrote on behalf of the board in Wednesday’s decision.
The decision comes after OSC requested a stay from MSPB last week, arguing that USDA had not followed proper protocols for conducting a reduction in force (RIF). In the federal government, agencies are statutorily required to follow specific procedures when conducting any RIFs, including following a clear process for determining which employees are retained or removed from the agency. OSC argued that USDA circumvented RIF regulations in its terminations of the probationary employees last month.
OSC also argued that although the agency stated the blanket terminations were based on “performance,” USDA provided no explanation of how the employees’ performance was deficient, and instead based terminations on “the current needs and best interest of the government, in light of the President’s directive to dramatically reduce the size of the federal workforce.”
“I want to thank the MSPB for granting this important stay,” Special Counsel Hampton Dellinger said in a statement Wednesday. “Agencies are best positioned to determine the employees impacted by these mass terminations. That’s why I am calling on all federal agencies to voluntarily and immediately rescind any unlawful terminations of probationary employees.”
Federal News Network reached out to USDA for comment on the MSPB’s decision.
Under federal regulations, MSPB is required to stay federal agencies’ firing decisions whenever OSC gives the board “reasonable grounds” to believe there’s evidence of a prohibited personnel practice. A stay decision gives OSC time to conduct a broader inquiry into whether an agency has committed a prohibited personnel practice.
The board’s stay decision on Wednesday for USDA is non-precedential — meaning that future decisions on other probationary employee terminations don’t necessarily have to follow suit. But last week, MSPB also put the brakes on the terminations of six different federal employees, all from different agencies. In that case, MSPB similarly said OSC appeared to have shown that agencies were using the probationary employee terminations as a back-door method of accomplishing a RIF.
The reinstatements of employees at USDA are also not final. The 45-day stay is meant to give OSC time to further investigate the situation. The office is currently working through numerous cases related to the recent governmentwide terminations of probationary employees. OSC appears to be grouping many of its efforts by agency, since the firings of probationary employees occurred in similar manners agency-wide.
“My agency will continue to investigate and take appropriate action on prohibited personnel practices including improper terminations of probationary employees,” Dellinger said. “Voluntarily rescinding these hasty and apparently unlawful personnel actions is the right thing to do and avoids the unnecessary wasting of taxpayer dollars.”
OSC’s actions come in response to the firings of tens of thousands of probationary federal employees across government in the last several weeks. Many fired employees had joined the federal workforce within the last one to two years. Others who were removed from their jobs had spent years or even decades in public service, but had recently accepted a different federal position that put them back into a probationary period.
Democrats on the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee are also strongly urging the Trump administration to reinstate all probationary employees who were recently fired from their jobs. The lawmakers, led by Ranking Member Gerry Connolly (D-Va.), are requesting further details and documentation on the governmentwide terminations.
“The committee is concerned that the sweeping nature of this RIF order has led to the unreasonable targeting of high-performing civil servants,” the lawmakers wrote in a March 3 letter to OPM Acting Director Charles Ezell. “Purging the federal government of employees through mass firings will drain agencies of institutional knowledge and specialized expertise in mission critical areas.”
Separately, a federal judge ruled last week that the Trump administration’s guidance on terminating probationary employees was illegal, and called for the guidance to be rescinded. OPM instead opted to updated its guidance, adding a paragraph stating that OPM was not directing agencies to fire federal workers.
OPM’s update to its memo, however, contrasts with wide reports that OPM was directing agencies to fire their probationary employees.
OPM declined to comment on MSPB’s decision to stay the terminations of the USDA employees.
MSPB is a key agency responsible for issuing decisions on prohibited personnel practices for federal employees. Member Raymond Limon recently retired from his position on the board, leaving a vacancy on the three-member panel. The MSPB, however, still has quorum with two members and can continue to issue decisions.
At the same time, Harris and Dellinger are both facing attempts from the Trump administration to remove them from their positions. A federal judge on Tuesday ruled that President Donald Trump’s Feb. 10 firing of Harris was unlawful. The judge’s decision this week lets Harris remain as a board member, for a term set to expire in March 2028. Dellinger was also recently reinstated as the head of OSC after a decision from a federal judge.
Editor’s Note: This story was updated to add comments from Democrats on the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee.
If you would like to contact this reporter about recent changes in the federal government, please email drew.friedman@federalnewsnetwork.com or reach out on Signal at drewfriedman.11
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