MSPB’s decision on fired probationary employees at DHS is the first class certification on any appeal from employees the Trump administration fired in February.
Probationary employees who allege their terminations from the Department of Homeland Security earlier this year were unlawful can now pursue their appeal as a class action at the Merit Systems Protection Board.
After MSPB issued a class certification decision Friday, DHS probationary employees who were fired now have coverage through the class appeal, rather than needing to file individual cases at MSPB as they seek reinstatement in their jobs.
DHS earlier this year terminated approximately 369 probationary employees who had recently either joined the federal workforce or started a new federal position. Friday’s decision from MSPB Chief Administrative Judge Sara Snyder created the first certified class out of 20 appeals that a consortium of law firms has filed on behalf of fired probationary employees at various agencies.
“I find that a class appeal is the fairest and most efficient way to adjudicate the appeal and that the putative class counsel and named appellants will adequately represent the interests of the parties,” Snyder, who works in MSPB’s western regional office, wrote in Friday’s decision.
The original appellants in the DHS case were employed at the Federal Emergency Management Agency and the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency. But Snyder determined that the class certification applies to...
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