OPM modifies the note but does not invert the probationary workers’ shots: NPR

The Trump Administration revised a service note on January 20 asking the federal agencies to provide a list of all probation employees to the staff management office, adding a warning that the OPM does not direct agencies to take specific measures.

But the memo does not call for a reintegration of tens of thousands of probative employees who have been dismissed. Probation employees are generally in their first or second year of work.

A new paragraph in the revised memo updated on Tuesday declares simply “please note that, by this memorandum, the OPM does not direct agencies to take specific actions based on performance concerning probationary employees. Agency has an ultimate decision -making authority on and responsibility for these staff actions. “”

On Tuesday afternoon, the American Federation of Government employees, a union representing 800,000 civil servants, called for agencies to act anyway.

“Each agency should immediately cancel these illegal layoffs and restore all those who have been illegally dismissed,” AFGE national president Kelley wrote in a statement.

The judge had tried probation layoffs probably violated several statutes

The OPM has published the note revised in part to give clarity to the light of a recent court order, confirmed a spokesperson for the agency, referring to the decision last week of a federal judge in San Francisco.

US district judge William Alsup ruled that the OPM had probably violated several laws in the order of agencies to make the dismissals and ordered the OPM to cancel the memo of January 20, as well as another published on February 14 which asked agencies to end probation employees by February 17.

“No law – nowhere has ever granted OPM the power to direct the cessation of employees in other agencies,” wrote Alsup in his opinion of memorandum.

Last week, the lawyer for the Trump administration argued that the OPM had simply asked the agencies to carry out the layoffs.

“Ask not order,” said assistant American prosecutor Kelsey Helland.

Alsup was not convinced, concluding at the end of the hearing that the OPM had in fact ordered agencies to dismiss probation employees, an act which, according to him, was “illegal and had to be arrested”.

The National Science Foundation confirmed on Monday that it had restored with Back Pay the 86 probationaries employees which he had dismissed “on the basis of the UPM -updated directives and the federal courts”.

OPM inserts a new language on how performance must be measured

Another modification of the memo of January 20 aims to restore how probation periods should be used.

The original memo of January 20 can be read

The revision of March 4 can be seen as follows: “Probations periods are an essential tool for agencies to assess employee performance and guarantee that” the driving and performance of a probationancenaire has established that the individual will be an asset for the government. “”

The new language echoes the advice that the OPM issued in the same memo of February 14, teacher in the agencies on how they should measure the performance of probationary employees when they decide if they should be kept.

“The performance of an employee must be seen through the current needs and the higher interest of the government, in the light of the president’s directive to considerably reduce the size of the federal workforce,” said the memo.

In their trial contesting the layoffs, the complainants declared that the advice “had no legal basis”, the writing “neither OPM nor any agency could legally dismiss a probation employee based on performance for reasons which have nothing to do with the performance of the employee”.

Alsup planned another hearing in the case on March 13.

Do you have any information you want to share on current changes through the federal government? Andrea HSU of NPR can be contacted through encrypted communications on the signal in Andreahsu.08.