A federal judge has ruled that the Trump administration must immediately reinstate thousands of government employees fired in a sweeping mass termination effort that critics say was designed to circumvent legal protections for public workers. The ruling is a major legal blow to the administration’s strategy of reshaping the federal workforce through mass layoffs, which a judge found to be based on false claims of poor performance.
U.S. District Judge William Alsup of the Northern District of California, an appointee of former President Bill Clinton, granted a preliminary injunction against the Office of Personnel Management and its acting director Charles Ezell. The ruling comes after thousands of probationary federal employees were terminated from six federal agencies, including the Departments of Agriculture, Defense, Energy, Interior, Treasury, and Veterans Affairs.
Alsup ruled that the firings were unlawful and ordered the Trump administration to reinstate all affected employees, concluding that the administration lacked the authority to justify the mass terminations under federal law.
“The reason that OPM wanted to put this based on performance was at least in part in my judgment a gimmick to avoid the Reductions in Force (RIF) Act, because the law always allows you to fire somebody for performance,” Alsup stated in his ruling.
The decision marks a significant rebuke of the Trump administration’s policies, which have sought to reduce the size of the federal workforce through executive orders and agency-level layoffs.
The ruling centers on an executive order signed by Trump last month, directing Elon Musk’s newly created Department of Government Efficiency to implement Reductions in Force across the federal government. The order, part of what the White House called a “workforce optimization initiative,” aimed to remove thousands of federal employees and streamline operations.
However, rather than following the legal RIF process—which requires agencies to prioritize employees based on tenure, performance, and veterans’ status—the administration instead terminated thousands of employees under the pretense of poor job performance.
Judge Alsup sharply criticized this approach, calling it a deliberate attempt to bypass worker protections.
“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,” Alsup wrote in his decision. “That should not have been done in our country. It was a sham in order to try to avoid statutory requirements.”
By categorizing the mass firings as performance-based, rather than as Reductions in Force, the administration was able to sidestep federal regulations that would have required transparency, oversight, and an appeals process for affected workers.
Following the court ruling, Trump defended his administration’s actions but provided no evidence to support his claims that the terminated workers had been underperforming. Speaking to reporters in the Oval Office, he doubled down on his justification for the mass terminations.
“I feel very badly, but many of them don’t work at all. Many of them never showed up to work. Many of them, many of them never showed up to work,” Trump said.
The president further suggested that the firings were targeting “people that aren’t working or are not doing a good job.”
However, data contradicts Trump’s assertions. According to a recent analysis by The Washington Post, federal employees work longer hours on average than their private-sector counterparts. The American Community Survey, which examined 13 million workers over a decade, found that federal employees worked an average of 41.6 hours per week, compared to 39.4 hours per week in the private sector.
The study further revealed that:
• Military personnel worked an average of 48.4 hours per week.
• Postal workers worked 41.6 hours per week.
• Over 91 percent of all federal workers clocked at least 40 hours per week, compared to 74.4 percent of private sector employees.
Trump’s claims that many federal workers “never showed up to work” lack any factual basis.
Many of those fired under the Trump administration’s policy are military veterans, a group the president has repeatedly claimed to support. According to The Associated Press, roughly three in ten of the terminated employees were veterans.
Kansas City resident Donny Newsom, who was fired from the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, said his dedication to public service was what led him to work in the federal government after his military career.
“When I retired from the Navy, my goal was to continue public service. That’s where my heart was, and that’s the most disturbing thing to me about being fired,” Newsom said.
Other federal workers echoed similar frustrations, saying the official justification for their firings was inconsistent with their actual job performance.
“My termination letter said that it was due to performance, when I have a performance review that says that’s not the case,” said Michael Slattery, a former scientist with the U.S. Geological Survey in St. Petersburg, Florida.
“You keep thinking it’s a dream,” said James Stancil, a former Veterans Affairs worker in Milwaukee. “You keep thinking it’s, you know, this isn’t real, you’ll get a call today. Ah, come on back. You know, we made a mistake.”
The court’s decision was widely praised by labor unions and advocacy organizations, which argued that the Trump administration’s actions were part of a broader effort to dismantle the federal workforce and weaken labor protections.
Everett Kelley, national president of the American Federation of Government Employees, celebrated the ruling as a major victory for federal employees.
“We are pleased with Judge Alsup’s order to immediately reinstate tens of thousands of probationary federal employees who were illegally fired from their jobs by an administration hellbent on crippling federal agencies and their work on behalf of the American public,” Kelley said.
“We are grateful for these employees and the critical work they do, and AFGE will keep fighting until all federal employees who were unjustly and illegally fired are given their jobs back,” he added.
Lee Saunders, president of the American Federation of State, County, and Municipal Employees, emphasized the importance of protecting workers from politically motivated firings.
“Public service workers are the backbone of our communities in every way. Today, we are proud to celebrate the court’s decision which orders that fired federal employees must be reinstated and reinforces they cannot be fired without reason,” Saunders said.
Environmental and social justice groups also weighed in on the decision. Violet Wulf-Saena, founder and executive director of Climate Resilient Communities, noted that the mass firings were particularly harmful to environmental justice efforts.
“The mass firing of public service employees is a direct assault on the environmental justice movement and will harm people living in heavily polluted communities,” she said. “Today’s decision represents a key win for our movement because our lifesaving work cannot proceed without the vital infrastructure and support of our federal employees.”
The Trump administration has vowed to appeal the ruling, arguing that the president has broad authority over federal employment decisions. The legal battle is expected to continue in higher courts, potentially delaying the reinstatement of thousands of employees.
Meanwhile, progressive lawmakers are calling for legislative action to prevent similar mass firings in the future. House Democrats have proposed hearings to investigate the Trump administration’s use of executive orders to bypass federal worker protections.
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