Mar 13, 2025 - Business

2nd judge orders agencies to reinstate thousands of fired federal workers

Rebecca Falconer

Protesters hold signs in solidarity with the American Federation of Government Employees of District 14 at a rally in support of federal workers at the Office of Personnel Management in Washington, DC, March 4, 2025. — Protesters hold signs in solidarity with the American Federation of Government Employees of District 14 at a rally in support of federal workers at the Office of Personnel Management last week. Photo: Alex Wroblewski/AFP via Getty Images

The Trump administration must reinstate thousands of fired probationary federal workers, a judge said in a temporary restraining order on Thursday.

Why it matters: In the second such order to reinstate fired workers on Thursday, U.S. District Judge James Bredar ruled that the lawsuit brought by state attorneys general against 18 agencies was likely to succeed in showing the mass firings "were unlawful."

Driving the news: In the latest case, the Obama-appointed judge said in his order in Maryland the agencies gave "no advance notice" for the mass layoffs.

"It claims it wasn't required to because, it says, it dismissed each one of these thousands of probationary employees for 'performance' or other individualized reasons," Bredar wrote.
"On the record before the Court, this isn't true. There were no individualized assessments of employees. They were all just fired. Collectively," he added.

The big picture: The lawsuit was filed against agencies including the Departments of Agriculture, Commerce, Defense, Education, Energy, Health and Human Services, Homeland Security, Housing and Urban Development, Interior, Labor, Transportation, Treasury and Veterans Affairs, along with their secretaries.

A federal judge in California earlier on Thursday ordered six government agencies to offer fired probationary federal workers their jobs back.
Representatives for the Trump administration did not immediately respond to Axios' request for comment in the evening.

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2nd judge orders agencies to reinstate thousands of fired federal workers

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