Washington — The Office of Personnel Management issued revised guidance to federal agencies Tuesday regarding the firing of probationary workers amid President Trump’s efforts to shrink the size of the government, informing department leaders that they do not have to take any “specific performance-based actions” regarding those employees.
The revised memo from Charles Ezell, the acting director of OPM, comes after a federal judge ruled last week that the Trump administration’s mass firings of probationary workers, who generally have been in their jobs for less than one year, were likely illegal.
U.S. District Judge William Alsup found that “OPM did not have the authority to direct the firing of employees, probationary or otherwise, in any other federal agency.”
The latest guidance from OPM revises a Jan. 20 memo from Ezell that required agencies to identify all employees still in their probationary periods and send a report to the agency listing all those workers. The memo instructed department heads to “promptly determine whether those employees should be retained at the agency.”
But the revised memo includes a new paragraph that states that “by this memorandum, OPM is not directing agencies to take any specific performance-based actions regarding probationary employees. Agencies have ultimate decision-making authority over, and responsibility for, such personnel actions.”
OPM said it “wanted to clarify in light of a recent court order and some public misinformation. It has always been up to agencies whether to take performance-based actions against probationary employees.”
Everett Kelley, national president of the American Federation of Government Employees, or AFGE, said OPM’s latest guidance “is a clear admission that it unlawfully directed federal agencies to carry out mass terminations of probational employees.”
“Every agency should immediately rescind these unlawful terminations and reinstate everyone who was illegally fired,” Kelley said in a statement regarding the memo.
The AFGE is one of the labor unions that sued the Trump administration over its firings of tens of thousands of federal workers. The unions estimated there were roughly 200,000 probationary workers employed throughout the federal government. The federal workforce consists of more than 2.4 million people, excluding military personnel and postal workers.
After Ezell directed agency heads to identify probationary employees, Mr. Trump issued an executive order that instructed agency heads to “promptly undertake preparations to initiate large-scale reductions in force.”
The mass firings were a drastic move by Mr. Trump in his effort to cut the size of the federal government. The president established the White House’s Department of Government Efficiency, or DOGE, to lead the efforts to shrink the government, and workers for the task force has fanned out across federal agencies. OPM also gave federal workers the option to participate in a deferred resignation program, which gave them the option to resign their positions but retain full pay and benefits until Sept. 30.
The White House said roughly 75,000 employees accepted the offer to leave their government jobs, far fewer than the 200,000 it expected to take the so-called buyout.
The Trump administration has also targeted specific agencies, namely the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau and the U.S. Agency for International Development, in its cost-cutting efforts. Mr. Trump’s overhaul of the agencies, though, is being challenged in federal court.
