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PROBATIONARY FEDERAL EMPLOYEES TARGETED FOR MASS PURGE  
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David Dayen
January 29, 2025
The American Prospect
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_ As many as 200,000 federal employees with weaker civil service
protections could be let go. But they are supposed to only be fired
for poor performance. FAA director Mike Whitaker resigned, effective
January 20. _

FAA Director Mike Whitaker announced in an email to the agency's
staff that he will resign on Jan. 20. When Whitaker took over in 2023,
the agency had not had a Senate-confirmed leader in more than 18
months., Photo credit: Andrew Harnik from May 2024 press conference //
NPR

 

The malign forces trying to break the federal workforce have hit on
another idea: targeting “probationary” employees.

These are employees with one year or less of service in the federal
government, and in some cases, employees with up to two years of
service. There are more than 220,000 of them according to one
estimate
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and they have weaker civil service protections than their colleagues.
President Trump’s allies want to exploit that with a mass firing.

Below is the copy of an email received by employees of the
Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), which was sent to people who
“have been identified as an employee likely on a probationary/trial
period.” It has been reported that agencies were asked to assemble
lists
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these newly hired employees.

 
The email from the Environmental Protection Agency
“As a probationary/trial period employee, the agency has a right to
immediately terminate you pursuant to 5 CFR § 315.804,” the email
reads. It claims that the termination would occur immediately upon the
employee receiving notice.

That is not a correct reading of the federal code. The provision in
question
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to termination “for unsatisfactory performance or conduct,” not on
a whim. The employee must be notified in writing of the reason why
they are being terminated, and “the information in the notice as to
why the employee is being terminated shall, as a minimum, consist of
the agency’s conclusions as to the inadequacies of his performance
or conduct.”

Nevertheless, any probationary employee who received an email like
this would probably get the impression that they are on the way out
with their employer.

The email does mention an appeals process through the Merit Systems
Protection Board, an agency that adjudicates disputes among the
federal workforce. MSPB didn’t have a quorum to hear cases for the
entire first term of the Trump administration; it finally reached a
quorum under President Biden in 2022 and has one now. But Trump has
been firing other members of commissions and boards, including the
National Labor Relations Board. So MSPB would be a place to watch.

But the email adds a catch, that those who do not meet the definition
of “employee” under the law are not eligible for an appeal.
Earlier, a memo sent to agency heads by the Office of Personnel
Management asserted
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probationary employees can be fired “without triggering [Merit
System Protection Board] appeal rights,” and it does appear that
their appeal options are more limited than more senior employees’.

The government is currently under a federal hiring freeze, so no
probationary employees who are terminated could be replaced until that
lifts.

About 6.5 percent of probationary employees, according to a March 2024
survey by Fedscope, were at the Internal Revenue Service. The greatest
number of probationary employees, more than 25 percent, were at the
Veterans Health Administration.

The target on probationary employees comes on the heels of the offer
for “deferred resignation
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made yesterday, giving employees an exemption from return-to-office
rules and possibly a lighter or nonexistent workload (without a
guarantee) in exchange for a resignation at the end of September.
Along with other firings and purges, it reflects an effort to remake
the federal workforce in the image of Donald Trump, with an emphasis
on loyalty to the president. This reverses the building of the
professionalized civil service that took hold in America in the late
19th century, and threatens to return the country to the spoils system
of politicized bureaucracy.

The American Federation of Government Employees, which represents
unionized EPA officials, sent an email to staffers, urging them to
“Please do what you need to protect all of your information
regarding your Federal employment … you need to download/print out
all pertinent employment information such as your entire eOPF. Do this
ASAP!”

The new administrator of the EPA, Lee Zeldin, was just confirmed by
the Senate on Wednesday afternoon.

_[DAVID DAYEN is the Prospect’s executive editor. His work has
appeared in The Intercept, The New Republic, HuffPost, The Washington
Post, the Los Angeles Times, and more. His most recent book is
‘Monopolized: Life in the Age of Corporate Power
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_Read the original article at Prospect.org.
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_Used with the permission. © The American Prospect
[[link removed]], Prospect.org, 2025 [[link removed]].
All rights reserved.  _

_Support the American Prospect [[link removed]]._

_Click here [[link removed]] to support the Prospect's
brand of independent impact journalism_

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