A federal judge has ordered six US government agencies to immediately rehire employees fired this year by the Trump administration.
Speaking in a court in San Francisco, Judge William Alsup on Thursday ordered the Departments of Defense, Energy, Veterans Affairs, Agriculture, Interior, and Treasury to bring back sacked staff, because the Office of Personnel Management (OPM) had no right to order the firings and that the agencies broke employment law by falsely claiming that staff were let go for incompetence.
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
The court heard that the OPM – operating under the shadow of Elon Musk's Trump-blessed cost-cutting DOGE unit – had provided the six agencies with a template letter that cited performance as the reason for dismissal. But many of the fired government workers had good performance ratings before being given the boot, in some cases excellent ones.
The OPM is supposed to be primarily an advisory and policy setting body, and hiring and firing is handled by federal organizations following the office's advice – the OPM isn't supposed to directly fire workers or order their dismissal. This is beside the issue of iffy performance-related terminations. (Don't forget, most US government workers cannot be fired at will like the vast majority of us here in the American private sector; legit cause needs to be given.)
"The reason that OPM...
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