Trump administration sued over mass firings by workers at five agencies

By Daniel Wiessner

March 11 (Reuters) - A group of U.S. government employees who lost their jobs as part of President Donald Trump's purge of the federal workforce filed a lawsuit on Tuesday claiming the mass firings of recently-hired workers is illegal and should be reversed.

The proposed class action in Washington, D.C. federal court appears to be the first of its kind against the Trump administration by probationary government employees, who typically have spent less than a year in their current roles and have fewer job protections than other federal workers.

Unions that have sued over the mass firings of thousands of probationary workers are facing procedural hurdles, and Tuesday's lawsuit says political turmoil at the board that hears federal workers' appeals of their terminations may render that process futile.

"What is needed is for this court to order the defendant agencies to return all affected employees to work for at least the pendency of this litigation," the plaintiffs said in the complaint.

White House spokeswoman Anna Kelly in an email said: “President Trump is rooting out the vast waste, fraud, and abuse across the Executive Branch. He will deliver on the American people’s mandate to effectively steward taxpayer dollars, which includes removing probationary employees who are not mission-critical."

The lawsuit was filed by eight probationary employees who were fired over the last few weeks and are seeking to represent a class of more than 4,000 people at the five agencies where they worked.

They claim the mass firings violated workers' due process rights under the U.S. Constitution and were improper because agencies did not identify performance issues on a case-by-case basis or give workers an opportunity to respond.

The plaintiffs worked at the Department of Veterans Affairs, the Department of Health and Human Services, the Treasury Department, the Commerce Department, and the General Services Administration.

HHS, GSA, and the VA declined to comment. The Treasury and Commerce departments did not immediately respond to requests for comment.

Trump and billionaire Elon Musk, a top adviser, are pursuing an aggressive campaign to shrink the federal workforce, which included about 2.3 million workers when Trump took office in January.

The first round of mass firings focused on probationary workers, who have limited grounds to challenge their terminations. Unions, non-profits, and state attorneys general have brought legal challenges but so far have not secured widespread relief for government workers.

Thousands of fired employees have turned to the U.S. Merit Systems Protection Board, which hears appeals of terminations and other discipline by federal agencies, and the agency has ordered the temporary reinstatement of nearly 6,000 probationary employees at the Department of Agriculture.

But the agency is facing a flood of new cases and the Democratic board member who issued the USDA order, Cathy Harris, is locked in a legal battle over Trump's attempt to remove her from office. If she loses, the board will at least temporarily lack a quorum of two members that can decide cases.

Tuesday's lawsuit seeks an order that reinstates probationary employees at the five named agencies "and otherwise make them whole."

The case is Gober v. Collins, U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia, No. 1:25-cv-00714.

For the plaintiffs: Pamela Keith and Scott Lempert of the Center for Employment Justice

For the defendants: Not available

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