Date: February 24, 2025
Chaos has ensued following the Trump administration's firing of thousands of federal employees. Multiple lawsuits and complaints have been filed to challenge the terminations. Bloomberg Law spoke with TELG principal Michael Vogelsang about the options available for the recently fired federal employees.
Quoteworthy:
“The intent of these terminations is not ‘you’re not a good fit’ on an individual basis. It is ‘we need to cut heads,’ and this is just the easiest way to do it.”
Michael L. Vogelsang, Jr.
» View on Bloomberg Law (Site requires paid subscription.)
[EXCERPT]
Trump’s Mass Firings of Federal Workers Spread Chaos Nationwide
The Energy Department fired a grants officer without giving his manager a heads up. The IRS tried to fire thousands of employees, but an email glitch kept many in the dark. The Environmental Protection Agency locked an attorney out of his office before he could pick up his law school diploma.
Terminated federal workers across the government describe a haphazard and disorganized effort to slash the size of the federal government.
That chaos is the result of President Donald Trump’s disordered demand to cut as many as 200,000 recent hires at federal agencies. The mass firings have reached nearly 30,000 federal employees from coast to coast, according to an analysis of news reports by Bloomberg Law. The Office of Personnel Management, the federal government’s HR division, declined to provide its own count on the record.
Those remaining wonder whether they’re next.
Firing probationary workers — new hires — allows the Trump administration to cut workers who don’t have the stronger job protections reserved for longer-serving employees.
“The intent of these terminations is not ‘you’re not a good fit’ on an individual basis,” said Michael Vogelsang, a federal-sector attorney at the Employment Law Group. “It is ‘we need to cut heads,’ and this is just the easiest way to do it.”
[…]
Federal employees hired within the past year largely can’t dispute their firing to the Merit Systems Protection Board, the panel that mediates disputes between agencies and their workers. Probationary employees can appeal if they think partisan politics fueled their termination, Vogelsang said.
» View on Bloomberg Law (Site requires paid subscription.)
