Chris Arnold
Appearances
The NPR Politics Podcast
How DOGE Cuts Are Impacting Federal Workers
Yeah, right. A lot of these workers who've been fired are what are called probationary workers. And that can sound at first like, oh, well, maybe they got hired six months ago, so maybe it's not that big a deal. But in many cases, it's not that. You could have worked someplace for five, six, seven, ten years, and then you get a promotion and you're in a new job because you were doing a good job.
The NPR Politics Podcast
How DOGE Cuts Are Impacting Federal Workers
You're a good worker. And now you're in a probationary period in that new job. So these folks were in that category. And I talked to Eileen and James Kramer, and they worked at a national park in Alaska. It's called Lake Clark National Park. These guys have both gotten promotions recently. Everything seemed good. And then they get these letters saying, you know what, you're doing a lousy job.
The NPR Politics Podcast
How DOGE Cuts Are Impacting Federal Workers
And so you're fired today. No details, no reason. And it just looked like a formally letter with their names filled in. And here's Eileen and James.
The NPR Politics Podcast
How DOGE Cuts Are Impacting Federal Workers
I mean, that's what's happening right now. I mean, there are lawyers just gathering these up, you know, and being like, here's the letter. It's the same as the other thousand letters. And when you actually look at the personnel file, you know, this person got this commendation and, you know, and also they're talking and it turns out their own supervisor was like, I don't want to fire this person.
The NPR Politics Podcast
How DOGE Cuts Are Impacting Federal Workers
Well, there's one in federal court in San Francisco against the Office of Personnel Management, which apparently the lawsuit alleges a lot of these letters just came from OPM and then kind of went through the agencies. But it wasn't even these agencies saying, we want to fire these people. But it also zooms in on this idea like you were talking about, like, well –
The NPR Politics Podcast
How DOGE Cuts Are Impacting Federal Workers
You can't just lie and say these people did their jobs badly and use that as a justification to immediately terminate them. There was just another kind of related case. Things were resolved in the last couple of days involving the U.S. Office of Special Counsel. And a few workers were put back to work or will be in a couple of days.
The NPR Politics Podcast
How DOGE Cuts Are Impacting Federal Workers
So, you know, the courts really might come back and say, you know what, guys, like this just wasn't done right. Like these federal workers have rights and you cannot fire them this way.
The NPR Politics Podcast
How DOGE Cuts Are Impacting Federal Workers
Well, and I think like that's a big difference between the private sector, too. Right. I mean, if Musk buys Twitter, which became X, I mean, yeah, he's in charge. He can fire half the people. The parallel with the government like stops there. Right. It makes me think I used to cover Silicon Valley and you'd see guys who made gajillions of dollars.
The NPR Politics Podcast
How DOGE Cuts Are Impacting Federal Workers
And then they're like, I want to solve public education. And they would try to wade in. And then they'd realize like, oh my God, no, I'm dealing with the unions. And I don't have like a room full of really smart grads from Stanford, like making this one thing. I'm dealing with a hundred things and they're all way more complicated. And it's like, it kind of reminds me of that.
The NPR Politics Podcast
How DOGE Cuts Are Impacting Federal Workers
You know, it's like, it's just turning into this absolute swamp of tangled intention where, you know, anything he tries to do the way he would do it, say when he took over Twitter, is just going to spark lawsuits. Yeah.
The NPR Politics Podcast
How DOGE Cuts Are Impacting Federal Workers
I mean, I think seeing how this plays out with federal workers and whether the courts are willing to say you didn't follow the rules and you can't just summarily fire tens of thousands of people and send out all these letters that essentially lie about things like that's just not OK. And you got to hire them all back. And let's do this like grownups.
The NPR Politics Podcast
How DOGE Cuts Are Impacting Federal Workers
And if that's able to work, you know, I think that would be really interesting. And I don't know if that's what's going to happen.
The NPR Politics Podcast
How DOGE Cuts Are Impacting Federal Workers
Well, yeah, I mean, absolutely. Either way that goes, I mean, there's just there's a lot hanging on that for so many, so many federal workers, obviously.
Up First from NPR
Congress Budget Vote, Trump Speaks At DOJ, Federal Workers Reinstated
The judge said a lot, actually. This is a dramatic hearing. This is District Judge William Alsup. And one thing he said is that these workers were lied to about why they were fired. He said, quote, it's a sad day when our government would fire some good employee and say it was based on performance when they know good and well that that is a lie.
Up First from NPR
Congress Budget Vote, Trump Speaks At DOJ, Federal Workers Reinstated
And the idea there is that firing workers for bad performance made it easier to fire them, but it wasn't true. Many workers got glowing reviews from supervisors. They'd been doing a good job. We've spoken with some of these workers. The judge called the mass firing a sham to get around statutory requirements.
Up First from NPR
Congress Budget Vote, Trump Speaks At DOJ, Federal Workers Reinstated
And he said that the administration exceeded its authority by having one office in the government direct so many other agencies to just summarily fire all these workers.
Up First from NPR
Congress Budget Vote, Trump Speaks At DOJ, Federal Workers Reinstated
Right. The government argued that agencies made their own decisions. The firings were proper. But the judge, again, said, quote, you know, I tend to doubt that you're telling me the truth at that point. The White House is unamused by all of this.
Up First from NPR
Congress Budget Vote, Trump Speaks At DOJ, Federal Workers Reinstated
White House Press Secretary Caroline Leavitt said in a statement, quote, a single judge is attempting to unconstitutionally seize the power of hiring and firing from the executive branch. The administration has now appealed, but now it's not a single judge. Last night, this ruling came down in the second case. The judge sided with Democratic State Attorneys General.
Up First from NPR
Congress Budget Vote, Trump Speaks At DOJ, Federal Workers Reinstated
They put a 14-day stay in place on these mass firings. The government there had argued that the states didn't have standing and hadn't been harmed by the firings. Interestingly, though, we should say both judges said, look, we understand the government has a right to do a reduction in force, but it has to follow the law.
Up First from NPR
Congress Budget Vote, Trump Speaks At DOJ, Federal Workers Reinstated
I mean, one thing I've been struck by is that these are not all new hires. I mean, these are probationary workers, but a lot of them have been working in an agency for 10 years, say, and they're probationary because they just got a new job that they just got promoted. I talked to an employment attorney, Michelle Berkovich, about this. She's working on another effort to reinstate workers.
Up First from NPR
Congress Budget Vote, Trump Speaks At DOJ, Federal Workers Reinstated
And the plaintiff's attorneys in the case say the firings have made Swiss cheese of some of these agencies.
Up First from NPR
Congress Budget Vote, Trump Speaks At DOJ, Federal Workers Reinstated
Well, the judge in the San Francisco case said immediately. Berkovich is saying, don't count on this. The government's been dragging its feet with some of these orders. She's telling workers, look, if you're looking for another job or trying some kind of appeal, just keep doing that.
Up First from NPR
Congress Budget Vote, Trump Speaks At DOJ, Federal Workers Reinstated
Thanks, Layla.