The American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) is asking Congress to investigate the Trump administration’s plans for “imminent mass layoffs” of as many as 200,000 employees hired within the last two years ago.
The letter comes as departments across government have been asked to assemble a list of employees still on prohibition after being hired. The probationary period lasts one or two years, depending on the agency.
The ACLU said Trump administration officials have “repeatedly made clear that they intend to reshape the federal workforce for their own partisan political purposes.”
“We respectfully urge that you investigate the Administration’s rationale and legal basis for these planned layoffs…Mass layoffs of federal employees of the sort that have been reported to be under consideration are presumptively and inherently illegal,” the ACLU wrote to the Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee.
The ACLU argues the law requires reviewing each employee’s performance on a case-by-case basis, while any large-scale firings would have to follow existing law for shrinking the workforce.
Despite their probationary status, the employees are still afforded much of the same protections as the broader federal workforce, meaning they must be informed of “inadequacies” in their performance before being fired.
“While the law allows for the termination of probationary employees for performance or conduct reasons, a mass firing on this scale without any sort of individualized assessment or following of Reduction in Force (RIF) procedures raises serious legal concerns,” the ACLU wrote to the Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee.
“RIF decisions similarly cannot be motivated by partisan political reasons. Any effort to sidestep RIF procedures or apply political litmus tests to their employment status would violate federal law,” they added, noting reductions in force laws require a 60-day advance notice to employees.
The plan to remove probationary employees is just one of a number of sweeping actions to reshape the workforce.
The Office of Personnel Management has also offered nearly all government employees the option to take a buyout. Though the offer promises eight months of pay and benefits for those wishing to leave federal service, the proposed contract contains numerous conflicting statements and would leave employees with little recourse to challenge any fallout from the deal — including if it is not funded.
And President Trump also signed an order reigniting his Schedule F mandate, now dubbed Schedule P/C, that creates a new class of federal employees — directing agencies to reassign career policy staff to new positions where they could be hired and fired like political appointees.
The move has sparked fear the Trump administration will use the new employee class to remove career civil servants and replace them with political appointees, who would then have greater control over what have traditionally been nonpartisan roles.
The letter from the ACLU defended the current merit-based hiring system,
“Everyone in America relies on the professional and skilled federal employees who serve our communities,” they wrote.
“We need the people in these and so many other critical roles selected for their professionalism not for loyalty or cronyism. At this perilous moment, we urge that you make clear that the Trump Administration cannot violate existing laws and purge probationary employees government-wide based on partisan political objectives, rather than merit.”
