After several labor unions filed lawsuits, a federal judge in California has ordered President Donald Trump’s administration to rehire thousands of laid-off federal workers.
John P. Mahoney, a D.C. employment attorney who specializes in cases involving federal workers, said probationary workers who’ve been let go should expect some sort of notification from the Office of Personnel Management to return.
“You’re going to be instructed to go back to work at some point. Whether it be tomorrow or not, is another question,” Mahoney said.
The lawsuit impacts laid-off probationary employees at the departments of Veterans Affairs, Defense, Treasury and Agriculture, Energy, and the Interior, but Mahoney said the judge didn’t close the door on expanding the order to include other agencies.
“It’s most likely going to cause OPM and the administration to reassess the legality of these probationary terminations without due process and, hopefully, cause them to voluntarily reverse all of them and bring all these people back to work,” Mahoney said.
One unknown, according to Mahoney, is whether this decision will be appealed.
“The issue becomes whether that judge’s decision is going to be appealed at some point, whether that’s some type of immediate appeal, which is pretty rare, or whether they’re going to have to wait until the end of the district court case to appeal it to the to the Court of Appeals,” Mahoney said.
This could also be appealed all the way up to the Supreme Court.
Mahoney said things such as back pay still need to be determined, if the ultimate decision is that probationary workers were illegally terminated.
“I think they’re all unlawful, and I think it’s smart, ultimately, for the agencies, for OPM and the departments, to bring these people back to work as soon as possible. Otherwise, they’re going to face even larger back pay orders at the end of the day,” Mahoney said.
He said even if workers return to the office, there could be more large-scale reductions in force. His hope, though, is that does not happen.
“The best thing to do, in my opinion, is to put everybody back to work and run the federal government as efficiently as possible, as we have done for quite some time, over 100 years now,” Mahoney said.
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