USFS Terminations

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annglidden
Posts: 93
Joined: Wed Jul 18, 2018 3:07 pm

Re: USFS Terminations

Post by annglidden » Sun Mar 09, 2025 4:18 pm

I think it's worth a try to get a Town Hall with Newhouse. We do pay his $174,000 salary. I know it's unlikely, after the Speaker's command not to hold in-person Town Halls, but we can at least push back. I've started a petition to encourage him to schedule one. It's at www.change.org/NewhouseTownHall, if you'd like to sign. Fire season is coming, and we need our federal employees! (And NOAA, and the National Weather Service). Newhouse needs to hear from us.

jimbo
Posts: 181
Joined: Sun Feb 22, 2009 5:45 pm

Re: USFS Terminations

Post by jimbo » Tue Mar 11, 2025 3:10 pm

At least this heads off some of it, for now.

On Wednesday, March 5, the Merit Systems Protection Board (MSPB) issued a 45-day stay on the termination of U.S. Department of Agriculture probationary employees. By Wednesday, March 12, the Department will place all terminated probationary employees in pay status and provide each with back pay, from the date of termination. The Department will work quickly to develop a phased plan for return-to-duty, and while those plans materialize, all probationary employees will be paid.”

https://www.usda.gov/about-usda/news/press-releases/2025/03/11/usda-status-update-probationary-employees?

ML Harris
Posts: 63
Joined: Wed Jan 06, 2010 9:39 am

Re: USFS Terminations

Post by ML Harris » Thu Mar 13, 2025 10:25 am

And from today's NY Times, the 'temporary' order to reinstate unjustly terminated staff has been made binding. However, the RIF (reduction in force) that is mentioned in the article is still planned. I spoke with someone at our district Forest Service office who said they are currently expecting a 20% reduction agency-wide. How that will effect our local district is unknown at this point. Contrary to an earlier post in this thread, there's no plan to auction the stock herd, but changes are being made to combine the Leavenworth and Winthrop herds, keeping them at Eightmile Ranch up the Chewuch.

"A federal judge on Thursday ordered six federal agencies to rehire thousands of workers with probationary status who had been fired as part of President Trump’s government-gutting initiative.

Ruling from the bench, Judge William J. Alsup of the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of California went further than he had previously, finding that the Trump administration’s firing of probationary workers had essentially been done unlawfully and by fiat through the Office of Personnel Management, the government’s human resources arm.

He directed the Treasury and the Veterans Affairs, Agriculture, Defense, Energy and Interior Departments to comply with his order and offer to reinstate any employees who were improperly terminated. His order stemmed from a lawsuit brought by employee unions who challenged the legality of the mass firings.

Judge Alsup concluded that the government’s actions were a “gimmick” designed to expeditiously carry out mass firings.

He said it was clear that federal agencies had followed directives from the Office of Personnel Management to use a loophole allowing them to fire probationary workers en masse based on poor performance, regardless of their actual conduct on the job.

“It is a sad day when our government would fire some good employee and say it was based on performance when they know good and well that’s a lie,” he said.

“It was a sham in order to try to avoid statutory requirements,” he added.

Before handing down the ruling, Judge Alsup was careful to clarify with lawyers representing the unions that “reduction in force” orders now being issued at several agencies were still legal and could go forward.

He said his finding that the earlier wave, recommended by the Office of Personnel and Management, was an overreach of executive authority, but that his order did not stand in the way of the government executing layoffs in accordance with the rules.

“If it’s done right, there can be a reduction in force within an agency, that has to be true,” Judge Alsup said.

“Congress itself has said you can have an agency can do a reduction in force, if it’s done correctly under the law,” he added, drawing an acknowledgment by a lawyer representing the unions.

Judge Alsup had originally planned to have Trump administration officials appear to testify about the process through which the layoffs were planned, but the government made clear Wednesday that Charles Ezell, the acting head of Office of Personnel Management, would not appear.

The judge's decision on Thursday, which also extends a restraining order last month blocking the Office of Personnel Management from orchestrating further mass firings, offered a temporary reprieve for federal workers unions who have resisted the Trump administration’s initiatives.

Danielle Leonard, a lawyer representing the unions, noted again during the hearing that the directives had had a devastating effect on agencies, by culling not only younger workers and recent graduates, but even career civil servants who had recently been promoted and were in a probationary period in their more senior positions.

“This action by O.P.M. made Swiss cheese of the federal agencies at every level,” she said."

https://www.nytimes.com/live/2025/03/13/us/trump-tariff-government-news?unlocked_article_code=1.3k4.dNGp.1q2X102Yc4Xy&smid=url-share

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