“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,” said William H. Alsup, of the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of California, on Thursday. “It was a sham in order to try to avoid statutory requirements.”
Poor performance could theoretically allow the Office of Personnel Management to justify the firings of employees who were probationary only in the sense that they had been hired (or in some cases, promoted) relatively recently. Splinter has viewed some of the firing notices at various agencies, specifically regarding employees that had recently received the highest marks on performance reviews. The agencies themselves generally have the hiring and firing power, but Elon Musk and his minions infiltrated OPM and have used the previously little known and little cared about (publicly, at least) government HR office to wreak havoc across Washington and beyond.
Judge Alsup’s order extends to the Departments of Energy, Interior, Veterans Affairs, Agriculture, Defense, and the Treasury. Other agencies may theoretically follow, though per the New York Times it is these six where the harms of the “poor performance” firings have been made most clear to this point. Importantly though, every agency’s plan for a “reduction in force,” or RIF, is due on Thursday, and those can theoretically be done legally, even if they lack any coherent moral, logical, or logistical reasoning. That means that even if the agencies comply with the new order — a big if, considering how brazenly court orders have been ignored over these first two months of the Trump administration — those same employees may be on the chopping block again soon.
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