Judge Orders Trump Administration To Tell Fired Workers They Were Not Let Go For Poor Performance

A U.S. district judge in San Francisco on Friday ordered the Trump administration to provide probationary workers fired en masse a written statement saying they were not terminated for performance reasons, but as part of a government-wide termination.

Judge William Alsup is overseeing a lawsuit brought by labor unions and nonprofits contesting the mass firings of thousands of probationary workers in February under Republican President Donald Trump.

In March, Alsup ordered six federal agencies to reinstate probationary workers because their terminations were directed by the Office of Personnel Management, which did not have the authority to fire workers at any other agency but its own.

The U.S. Supreme Court last week blocked Alsup's order requiring the administration to return those terminated employees to work, but did not decide whether the firings were unlawful.

Alsup was particularly upset that the firings of probationary workers - many young and early in their careers - followed an OPM template stating that the person had been fired for poor performance.