US federal workers hit back at Trump mass firings with class action complaints

Source: Reuters

March 6, 2025 2:06 PM EST Updated 5 hours ago


March 6 (Reuters) - U.S. government employees who have been fired in the Trump administration's purge of recently hired workers are responding with class action-style complaints claiming that the mass firings are illegal and tens of thousands of people should get their jobs back. Lawyers at two firms said on Thursday that they had filed six appeals with the federal Merit Systems Protection Board since last week and, along with other law firms, plan to bring about 15 more on an agency-by-agency basis on behalf of large groups of workers who were fired in recent weeks.

Federal workers must go through the merit board to challenge their terminations. But the panel's work could be brought to a standstill if President Donald Trump succeeds in removing the board's only Democratic member, Cathy Harris, who is locked in a legal battle with the administration to keep her job.

Harris on Tuesday ordered the U.S. Department of Agriculture to temporarily reinstate nearly 6,000 probationary employees, while the board considers a challenge to their firing. Probationary workers typically have less than a year of service in their current roles, though some are longtime federal workers. The lawyers filing the new appeals, Christopher Bonk and Daniel Rosenthal, said the mass terminations of probationary employees amounted to layoffs that are supposed to be guided by complex rules.

Probationary workers have limited legal protections compared with other civil servants, but agencies are still required to explain why they are being fired and give them advance notice of mass layoffs. "There are regulations in place to make sure that layoffs, when necessary and appropriate, are done with intentionality," said Bonk, of the Maryland firm Gilbert Employment Law. "The Trump administration has willfully ignored the law."

Read more: https://www.reuters.com/legal/us-federal-workers-hit-back-trump-mass-firings-with-class-action-complaints-2025-03-06/