LOS ANGELES, United States, March 14, 2025 (BSS/AFP) - A US judge on Thursday
ordered six federal agencies to rehire thousands of probationary workers
fired as part of Donald Trump's push to slash the size and scope of
government.

The ruling is the latest judicial setback for the administration, coming on
the heels of a string of legal defeats that nevertheless seem not to have
slowed the pace of change.

Judge William Alsup said the justification of "poor performance" for mass
lay-offs last month was "a sham in order to try to avoid statutory
requirements," the New York Times reported.

Ruling on a lawsuit brought by employee unions, Alsup ordered the departments
of the Treasury, Veterans Affairs, Agriculture, Defense, Energy and Interior
to reinstate anyone on probation who was improperly fired.

"It is 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's a lie," said
Alsup at a hearing at the US District Court in San Francisco.

Since returning to the White House in January, Trump has taken an ax to the
US government, cutting spending programs and firing tens of thousands of the
more-than 2 million employees on the federal payroll.

His actions have faced pushback from the courts, with several judges issuing
injunctions intended to halt them.

Last month Alsup ordered the federal government to rescind directives that
resulted in thousands of staff being let go.

On Thursday, he said the government was within its rights to downsize
staffing, but that it had to be done properly and with justification -- he
cited "reduction in force" orders issued by several agencies as legal routes.

"If it's done right, there can be a reduction in force within an agency, that
has to be true," he said.

"Congress itself has said you can have an agency do a reduction in force, if
it's done correctly under the law."

But that was not the case with the orders issued by the Office of Personnel
Management (OPM) -- the government's human resources body -- whose actions
amounted to overreach.

Attorneys from the Justice Department, representing the Trump administration,
had insisted that OPM never issued any orders, only guidance, the Washington
Post reported.

But, the paper said, court records showed officials from agencies including
the IRS, the Department of Defense, and Veterans Affairs, had disputed this,
claiming the order to cut probationary workers came directly from the OPM.

Trump -- supported by a chainsaw-wielding Elon Musk -- has set about
fundamentally reshaping the US government in a way that he says will make it
leaner and more efficient, but which opponents say amounts to a bid to
undermine its very purpose.

That effort found its latest expression this week when the Education
Department said it was halving the number of staff, in what the Secretary of
Education described as the first step to shutting it down.

Despite the high stakes, Trump faces few obstacles from the Washington
political establishment.

The Democratic Party are still in disarray after their electoral drubbing and
his Republican Party appears largely content to cede Congressional power to
the executive.