Timeline:

April 8 –The Supreme Court blocked U.S. District Judge William Alsup’s order requiring six agencies to reinstate probationary employees that were fired while litigation challenging the legality of the firings continues. 

March 13 –

• U.S. District Judge William Alsup ordered the departments of Defense, Treasury, Energy, Agriculture and Veterans Affairs to “immediately” reinstate all probationary employees fired around February 13-14 to their jobs, and ruled that OPM does not have the legal authority to exercise broad hiring and firing powers. This ruling was issued in a lawsuit brought against the federal government by a coalition of unions representing hundreds of thousands of federal employees.
• U.S. District Judge James Bredar issued a temporary restraining order against further mass firings of probationary workers, and ordered others who had been fired from 18 different federal agencies to be reinstated. This ruling was issued in a lawsuit brought against the federal government by 19 states and the District of Columbia. The Trump administration has filed an appeal.

March 5 – The Merit Systems Protections Board ordered the Trump administration to temporarily reinstate 6,000 wrongfully fired probationary employees to the U.S. Department of Agriculture.

February 14 – OPM issued another memo to federal agencies directing them to “separate” – or fire – certain probationary employees  by the end of the day on February 17.

February 11 – President Trump issued an executive order directing agencies to shrink the size of the federal government by reducing the federal workforce.

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On January 20, the White House instructed all federal agencies to provide lists of probationary workers to the Office of Personnel Management (OPM), with a specific reference to the fact that those employees can generally be fired with limited rights to appeal. Probationary employees are typically recent hires to the federal government who have served for fewer than 1-2 years, or those who have recently been promoted to new positions. These workers typically do not yet have the same full protections from being fired without cause as tenured civil service employees. However, they have some rights to appeal their removal, including if they were targeted based on partisan political affiliations or as retaliation for whistleblowing on wrongdoing.