After OPM’s probation staff were fired on a conference call and on February 13, 2025, security members lowered the OPM headquarters (OPM) flag after being fired in less than an hour to leave the Washington, D.C. building.
Tierney L. Cross |Reuters
On Thursday, a federal judge ordered the Personnel Management Office to revoke previous instructions to tell federal agencies to “quickly determine whether these employees should be maintained at the agency.”
The instructions given in the January 20th note and the February 14th internal email were “illegal” and “should be stopped,” said Judge William Alsup of the Northern District of California from the bench.
This ruling will not recover employees who have been rejected.
The judge directed the Personnel Management Department to communicate with the Department of Defense on Friday prior to the end of the expected trial.
Alsup ordered a hearing in which Human Resources Director Charles Ezell testified. The timing of the hearing is unknown.
“The Human Resources Administration does not have the authority to hire or fire employees within another agency under any law in space history,” Alsap said Thursday night. “Yes, it allows you to hire your own employees. You can fire them, but you can’t order or direct other agencies.”
“The OPM has no authority to tell any U.S. government agencies, other than itself, the duration of time they can hire and who can be fired. So we start with that important proposition,” he said.
Alsup has called on probation employees, known as the “lifeline of our government.”
“They come at a low level and they work their own way. That’s how we update ourselves and reinvent ourselves,” he said.
“For the first time in government history, the government’s position is that these employees are free to fire,” said Daniel Leonard, the plaintiff’s lawyer. “It’s not your law, it’s not your honor. Probation employees and agencies are obligated to fire probation employees before they can be fired.”
“The government should not keep secrets on wholesale orders that fire so many people,” Leonard appealed to the court.
There was a great disagreement in mid-February about whether OPM’s call to an agency directing the firing of probation employees was a “order” or “request.”
“Not only one agency, but in the entire government, in many agencies on the same day, something extraordinary happens. It doesn’t sound like someone ordered it, in contrast to ‘Oh, we just got coached’. ”
“Orders are not usually described as requests,” Helland said. “To ask is not to command me to do anything.”
Helland suggested that affected employees must pass through the office of special advisors or the office of the Merit Systems Protection Board to combat employment situations.
“Do they really claim this court that all of these federal employees are lying?” asked Leonard. “That’s what the lawyers are saying. I don’t think it’s reliable.”
Hundreds of thousands of people may have been affected by the Trump administration’s directive, but the exact number of people fired was not immediately clear.
