A hearing on the case federal workers filed against the Office of Personnel Management over the firing of probationary federal employees is scheduled for Thursday.
The evidentiary hearing in San Francisco starts at 8 a.m.
The American Federation of Government Employees (AFL) filed a lawsuit at the end of February against the Office of Personnel Management (OPM) over the recent firing of probationary federal employees.
In that filing, the AFL claims probationary federal employees were terminated en masse from a number of federal agencies. Plaintiffs contend the termination happened at the direction of OPM.
Probationary employees are defined as those who have served less than one year in the competitive service or less than two years in their excepted service.
According to court documents, on Jan. 20, OPM issued a memo asking department heads to identify probationary employees within a few days. On Feb. 13, a private conference call with OPM and heads of federal agencies took place. Participants or contents of that call are not directly in the record. On Feb. 14, an email from OPM asked heads to separate employees who were not critical by Feb. 17. Large-scale termination followed.
The case was filed at the end of last month. The judge ordered a temporary restraining order, saying, “OPM’s January 20 memo, February 14 email, and all other efforts by OPM to direct the termination of employees at NPS, BLM, VA, DOD, SBA, and FWS are unlawful, invalid, and must be stopped and rescinded.”
Source: NBC Bay Area