Six fired federal workers will be temporarily reinstated after a decision this week by the Merit Systems Protection Board, the first step toward what lawyers representing fired employees hope will be the restoration of thousands of jobs cut by the Trump administration.
The board, an independent agency that considers appeals from federal workers about employment actions, announced its decision late Tuesday. It will remain in effect through April 10 so that the Office of Special Counsel can continue investigating the fired employees’ complaints. The six employees come from six different federal agencies.
“I find that there are reasonable grounds to believe that each of the six agencies engaged in a prohibited personnel practice,” Raymond A. Limon, a member of the board, wrote in his order.
The decision ultimately could apply more broadly to thousands of other government employees who have been fired because they were on probationary status and relatively new in their positions.
Both the lawyer investigating the personnel actions, the special counsel Hampton Dellinger, and the chairwoman of the three-person board considering the claims, Cathy Harris, were also fired by Mr. Trump earlier this month. They are both fighting their own removals through the legal system, and federal judges have reinstated them temporarily.
Mr. Dellinger leads the Office of Special Counsel, the watchdog agency meant to protect whistle-blowers. He was fired on Feb. 7, but a federal judge ordered that the firing be put on hold until March 1.
The Merit Systems Protection Board that Ms. Harris presides over includes three members — two Democrats, including Ms. Harris, and one Republican. They were each appointed by presidents and have been confirmed by the Senate. They have seven-year terms that are designed to overlap. No more than two of the three members can be from the same political party.
In a slew of lawsuits challenging the firings since Mr. Trump has been in office, several federal judges have directed plaintiffs to make their arguments to the independent boards set up to handle them. In the case of the six fired probationary employees, that is the Merit Systems Protection Board.
The mass firings, which the Trump administration has characterized as necessary cost-cutting measures, are increasing the caseload at the government’s independent review boards. Last fall, the Merit Systems Protection Board received about 100 new cases a week. Between Feb. 16 and Feb. 22, it received 1,845.
On Feb. 21, Mr. Dellinger filed requests with the board to pause the firings of six probationary employees from the departments of Agriculture, Education, Energy, Housing and Urban Development, Veterans Affairs and the Office of Personnel Management.
Lawyers from a legal advocacy group Democracy Forward and the Alden Law Group hope that the pause will extend to their other clients, probationary employees from nine federal agencies, who have also filed complaints with Mr. Dellinger’s office. Registering complaints with his office is the first step to contesting their dismissals.
As of Wednesday, nearly 20,000 probationary employees have been fired, according to a New York Times analysis.
The probationary firings at the center of the claims Mr. Dellinger is pursuing before the merit protection board are just one phase of Mr. Trump’s strategy to gut the federal work force.
The next phase, which is recently underway, directs agencies to make significant “reductions in force.”
On Wednesday, the Office of Personnel Management published guidance for agencies to carry out those “large-scale” cuts, which Mr. Trump called for in a Feb. 11 executive order.
Those cuts are likely to bring additional court challenges.
