SAN FRANCISCO: A federal judge in California issued a temporary injunction on Thursday, preventing the Trump administration from instructing the U.S. Department of Defense and other federal agencies to execute mass layoffs of thousands of recently hired employees.
U.S. District Judge William Alsup in San Francisco stated during a hearing that the U.S. Office of Personnel Management does not have the authority to instruct federal agencies to terminate any employees, including those on probation who generally have less than a year of experience.
Former Republican President Donald Trump and billionaire entrepreneur Elon Musk, currently managing the newly established Department of Government Efficiency, are embarking on a groundbreaking initiative aimed at reducing the size of the federal bureaucracy. This ambitious effort includes significant job cuts to streamline operations and improve government efficiency.
Those efforts have resulted in a fierce pushback from Democrats, unions and federal workers, who argue the job cuts are illegal and could compromise government functions.
The administration has already had to bring back certain personnel for essential roles. In the meantime, Trump has shown strong support for Musk, aligning himself with Musk’s ambitious objective of cutting $1 trillion from the country’s $6.7 trillion budget.
Budget experts suggest that Elon Musk, the CEO of SpaceX and Tesla, may struggle to meet his financial goals solely through job cuts and waste reduction. As a result, he might need to consider more significant measures, potentially impacting government programs and benefits.
On Thursday, hundreds of probationary workers at the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, which conducts climate science, were notified they were being let go, according to a source familiar with the situation.
Officials at NOAA did not respond to a request for comment.
At the Internal Revenue Service, the head of the agency’s Transformation and Strategy Office, a group of 60 employees working on modernization efforts, told his team Thursday there was a risk the whole office would be eliminated, according a person briefed on the matter.
David Padrino, chief of the office, told his team that he planned to resign effective a week from Friday, the person said, adding that IRS executives have been told to brace for a “drastic” cut to headcount in the coming weeks.
Meanwhile, OPM, the federal human resources agency, has instructed at least two dozen of its own employees working remotely that they must relocate to Washington in order to keep their jobs. They were given until March 7 to decide.
