A U.S. court on Thursday rejected a union’s bid to temporarily stop the firing of thousands of federal employees in probationary status. This gave President Donald Trump a legal victory as he continued to cut the government workforce.
District Judge Christopher Cooper stated that he did not have the authority to hear the complaint. This was one of many filed in court in recent days to stop the mass dismissals.
Around 6,700 IRS workers on probation who are part of the 100,000-strong IRS were laid off at the time that the judge made his decision.
Former IRS probationary officers who were laid off on Friday said they had been told to cancel all trips before receiving an email requesting that they come into the office with government-issued IDs, laptops, and other documents.
A mother of two in her 40s who asked to remain anonymous said: “This just turned people’s entire lives upside-down.”
“There’s zero empathy. Maybe they don’t really care about this, and they only care about the mission of cost-cutting and such.”
She stated that they did not receive any severance pay and were now considering the “financial difficulties” that lay ahead. “How will we deal with our mortgage and our health insurance?” she asked.
Former IRS officials said that the majority of employees who were let go belonged to the enforcement teams of the U.S. Tax Agency, just two months before April 15th’s deadline for filing U.S. Income Tax returns.
The National Treasury Employees Union, along with four other unions representing federal employees, had requested Cooper to issue an interim restraining so that would prevent terminations of their members while they are on probation.
Cooper, an Obama appointee, stated that his court lacked jurisdiction to hear the claims of these workers and they should be brought instead before the Federal Labor Relations Authority (FLRA), a federal agency that adjudicates labor disputes.
The probationary worker claimed that the managers of the agency “had no idea” about the layoffs.
He said: “I believe DOGE has done a very good job of making it appear that the agencies are the ones who make the decisions. But I can tell you, yesterday, our managers were as shocked as us.”
Elon Musk runs the Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE), a department that is free to roam.
The IRS worker laid off on Thursday said that his staff was “a bit resigned and a little defeated” including the managers. Some of them seemed to be on the brink of tears.
He was a revenue agent in a team that oversaw the tax collection of corporations and wealthy individuals.
He said: “I believe Republicans have twisted the story in the media to say that the IRS hired a bunch of people to go against middle- or working-class folks, but many of the people hired were hired to target large corporations and individuals with high net worth.”
Another federal judge rejected a request on Wednesday to temporarily stop DOGE from terminating federal employees.
Last week, 14 Democrat-ruled States filed a lawsuit contesting Musk’s authority. District Judge Tanya Chutkan refused their urgent request to halt his actions.
Musk’s cost-cutting spree was met with legal opposition on multiple fronts, and mixed rulings.
Last week, a judge lifted the temporary freeze he had imposed on an offer by the Trump Administration to federal employees for a massive buyout program.
The White House reports that more than 75,000 federal workers have accepted the Office of Personnel Management’s buyout offer.
The IRS employee who was fired said that he felt “between the rock and a very hard place” after receiving the buyout. He had to decide whether to quit his job or be fired.
“It doesn’t seem right to me that all this could happen cruelly,” he said.