By BRIAN WITTE
ANNAPOLIS, Md. (AP) — A federal judge who had ordered the Trump administration to reinstate fired federal probationary employees across the country at more than a dozen agencies has narrowed the scope of his ruling so it now applies to workers in the 19 states and the District of Columbia that challenged the mass dismissals.
U.S. District Judge James Bredar in Baltimore issued a preliminary injunction Tuesday night that protects those workers while the lawsuit continues.
“Only states have sued here, and only to vindicate their interests as states,” Bredar wrote. “They are not proxies for the workers.”
The order requires the 18 agencies originally named in the lawsuit to follow the law in conducting any future reductions in force. Bredar has now added the Defense Department and the Office of Personnel Management to that number.
Bredar previously found that the firings amount to a large-scale reduction subject to specific rules, including giving advance notice to states affected by the layoffs.
The lawsuit contends the mass firings will cause irreparable burdens and expenses on the states and the district because they will have to support recently unemployed workers and review and adjudicate claims of unemployment assistance.
“When the Trump Administration fired tens of thousands of federal probationary employees, they claimed it was due to poor work performance. We know better,” said Maryland Attorney General Anthony Brown, a Democrat who is leading the case. “This was a coordinated effort to eliminate the federal workforce –- even if it meant breaking the law.”
At least 24,000 probationary employees have been terminated since Trump took office, the lawsuit alleges.
The government is appealing the case to the 4th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals.
The Republican administration argues that the states have no right to try to influence the federal government’s relationship with its own workers. Justice Department lawyers argued the firings were for performance issues, not large-scale layoffs subject to specific regulations.
The administration is already appealing to the Supreme Court a similar order from a judge in California to reinstate probationary workers. The Justice Department asserts that federal judges cannot force the executive branch to reverse its decisions on hiring and firing. Still, the government has been taking steps to rehire fired workers under those orders.
Probationary workers have been targeted for layoffs across the federal government because they’re usually new to the job and lack full civil service protection.
The states suing the Trump administration include Arizona, California, Colorado, Connecticut, Delaware, Hawaii, Illinois, Maryland, Massachusetts, Michigan, Minnesota, Nevada, New Jersey, New Mexico, New York, Oregon, Rhode Island, Vermont, and Wisconsin.
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