Civil Service Board Says Trump Has To Rehire Some Agriculture Workers For Around A Month

No one should be surprised that the bureaucracy is going to protect it’s own, right? Where are these same advocates when private companies let large numbers of people go? Why is it that the federal bureaucracy can never downsize?

Trump administration ordered to reinstate thousands of fired USDA workers

Thousands of fired workers at the Department of Agriculture must get their jobs back for at least the next month and a half, the chair of a federal civil service board ruled Wednesday.

The ruling said the recent dismissals of more than 5,600 probationary employees may have violated federal laws and procedures for carrying out layoffs.

Whoa, wait: “may”? It either did or did not. And all the other articles I’ve read on this say the same thing. You either did or did not go 10mph over the speed limit and get caught. You either did or did not brush your teeth this morning. It either did or did not violate the laws and procedures.

The decision from Cathy Harris, the chair of the Merit Systems Protection Board, is a blow to the Trump administration’s effort to drastically and quickly shrink the federal bureaucracy. Though it applies only to the USDA, it could lay the groundwork for further rulings reinstating tens of thousands of other probationary workers whom the Trump administration has fired en masse across the government.

But it’s far from a final resolution of the legality of the mass terminations. The administration may have further options to place the reinstated workers on administrative leave or fire them again as part of a formal “reduction in force.”

The ruling blocks the USDA from implementing the firings for 45 days while the merit systems board continues to review the issue. During that time, fired workers must “be placed in the positions that they held prior to the probationary terminations,” Harris wrote.

And you can bet the three person board will take their sweet time and try and keep every single on of these employees, regardless of whether they are doing their jobs, and even working. It could be that we end up learning how many are barely doing anything at all. Just getting paid. If they want to play this game then it’s time to pull out the scalpel and starting showing, without names, the number of federal employees who really do not do much. Who are doing the wrong thing.

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