The Hurff A. Saunders Federal Building is pictured in Juneau in an undated photo. (iStock/Getty Images Plus)
Some fired federal employees received letters on Monday notifying them they were “reinstated” according to a federal court order, but on “paid, non-duty” status, a type of administrative leave.
The U.S. Department of Commerce issued a letter to fired employees, including those formerly with the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, or NOAA, who shared a copy with the Alaska Beacon.
“When I first heard the decision, I was super excited,” said one former employee with NOAA, who spoke on condition of anonymity to avoid potential retaliation, as they hope to get their job back. “But as the weekend went on, I basically started to think that we’d probably be put on admin (administrative) leave and that it would be challenged, and I slowly lost confidence.”
While some reinstated employees have received letters not all have. U.S. Sen. Lisa Murkowski, R-Alaska, told reporters on Tuesday that she’s heard from employees who’ve received backpay, but no letter describing their employment status. “Basically it had been a direct deposit to their account, but with nothing further,” she said. “No notice that they were placed on administrative leave, no notice about going back to work … So there’s a lot of uncertainty, I think, about those that are being brought back on by order of the court.”
For those who did receive this notice, the letter states that employees are “reinstated to their position” retroactive to their date of firing, and placed on “paid, non-duty status until such a time as the litigation is resolved.”
“It’s nice to get a little more pay, but what we want is to have our jobs back,” said the former employee, who said the entire ordeal driven by the Trump administration’s cost-cutting efforts through the “Department of Government Efficiency” is anything but money saving.
“The whole process is inefficient. They’re spending money to terminate us all through HR, and then rehire us all and then, of course, now paying us not to do work,” they said. “The whole thing is incredibly inefficient.”
The letter came following a March 13 court decision in the U.S. District Court for the District of Maryland, which ordered the Trump administration to temporarily reinstate all fired probationary employees with 18 federal agencies, after finding those agencies acted unlawfully in carrying out the firings.
U.S. District Court Judge James Bredar, appointed in 2010 by Barack Obama, granted a temporary restraining order and a 14-day stay on the federal firings, after a case was brought by state attorneys general from 19 states and the District of Colombia.
The states argued the Trump administration ignored laws in carrying out the mass firings, with no advanced warning, and caused harm including to state programs that rely on federal workers, loss of tax revenue and harms to unemployment benefit systems with no advance notice.
At least 24,000 probationary federal employees have been fired since Trump took office, according to the lawsuit. In Alaska, the total number of probationary employees is estimated at 1,378, but the current number of fired federal employees is unknown.
The judge agreed with the plaintiffs that the process of mass firings, as well as citing probationary employees’ “performance,” was unlawful. “There were no individualized assessments of employees. They were all just fired. Collectively,” Bredar wrote in the court order.
The ruling orders all affected probationary employees to be reinstated with the defendant agencies, including the Departments of Commerce, Education, Health and Human Services, Interior Veterans Affairs, Treasury and others.
The Trump administration has appealed the ruling, arguing the federal government’s right supersedes the states, and the administration is targeting “waste, fraud and abuse.”
The letter from the U.S. Department of Commerce is signed by the Department Acting General Counsel John K. Guenther. It continues that if the court order is invalidated by a higher court and the department “prevails in this litigation matter,” the employees would be terminated again and they would “waive any indebtedness to the federal government,” meaning they would not be owed the back pay.
“The government is doing the absolute minimum to comply with the court order while still maintaining the stance that what they did was fine, and that’s disappointing,” said another former NOAA employee, in a phone interview on Monday, who also spoke anonymously to avoid potential repercussions.
“It’s great to get paid for that time, and it really helps considering how emotionally draining this whole process is,” they said. “But it’s not what I’m really after. I’m really after getting my job back. I want to go back to work. I’ve got stuff I’d like to go do.”
On Monday, a federal appeals court also denied a Trump administration’s request to overrule a Northern California district court’s order, and block the reinstatement of thousands of fired probationary employees.
The case was brought by the federal union, American Federation of Government Employees, arguing federal employees were fired illegally from six federal agencies, including Agriculture, Defense, Energy, Interior, Treasury and Veterans Affairs.
The Trump administration had appealed the ruling of U.S. Judge William Alsup, who ordered the reinstatement of federal employees. Alsup’s order is in place indefinitely, while Bredar’s is for 14 days, though it could be extended.
The White House has criticized the court rulings as “unconstitutional” and interfering with executive actions.
“A single judge is attempting to unconstitutionally seize the power of hiring and firing from the Executive Branch,” White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt said in a statement on social media on March 13, following the ruling. “The President has the authority to exercise the power of the entire executive branch – singular district court judges cannot abuse the power of the entire judiciary to thwart the President’s agenda. If a federal district court judge would like executive powers, they can try and run for President themselves.”
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