USDA Ordered to Reinstate 5,000+ Probationary Workers

Bloomberg Law’s Courtney Rozen reported Wednesday that “thousands of Department of Agriculture employees terminated under the Trump administration will return to their positions for now, after an independent commission said their firing broke the laws that shield career staff from political influence.”

“The Merit Systems Protection Board, which mediates disputes between federal agencies and their employees, found reasonable grounds to believe that the Agriculture Department violated civil service laws when it dismissed new hires, known as probationary employees,” Rozen reported. “The board directed the USDA to temporarily reinstate probationary employees fired since Feb. 13 due to ‘performance’ while the Office of Special Counsel investigates their firings. OSC estimates that the order will apply to more than 5,000 USDA workers.”

“Special Counsel Hampton Dellinger said other agencies should reinstate federal workers similarly terminated. ‘I am calling on all federal agencies to voluntarily and immediately rescind any unlawful terminations of probationary employees,’ Dellinger said in a statement,” according to Rozen’s reporting. “USDA must reinstate the employees through April 18, the MSPB said.”

Reuters’ Daniel Wiessner and Nate Raymond reported that President Donald “Trump and Elon Musk, the architect of the so-called Department of Government Efficiency, are spearheading an unprecedented effort to shrink the federal bureaucracy, including through job cuts.”

“It’s estimated that more than 20,000 federal employees, almost all probationary workers, have lost their jobs and another 75,000 have taken a buyout, out of the 2.3 million federal civilian workforce,” Wiessner and Raymond reported. “Probationary workers typically have less than a year of service in their current roles, although some are longtime federal workers.”

USDA Ordered to Reinstate Nearly 5,700 Fired Workers https://t.co/oFS2djQiE3

— Chris Clayton (@ChrisClaytonDTN) March 5, 2025

“Union efforts to contest the mass firings in federal court have faced procedural hurdles with judges questioning whether unions had standing to bring the cases or finding that they should have been brought to administrative boards like the MSPB,” Wiessner and Raymond reported. “The merit board has proved to be a potential roadblock in the Trump administration’s efforts to purge the federal workforce. The board hears appeals by federal government employees when they are fired or disciplined. It has already halted the firing of six other such employees at various agencies at the request of a watchdog agency whose leader, Hampton Dellinger of the U.S. Office of Special Counsel, was fired by Trump.”

Ag Secretary, Lawmakers Weigh in on Firings

Progressive Farmer’s Chris Clayton reported that “during a press conference Sunday at Commodity Classic in Denver, Agriculture Secretary Brooke Rollins was asked whether USDA was revisiting some of the job cuts that took place, as many of them left USDA research labs and facilities understaffed as a result. Rollins acknowledged the job cuts had been ‘an extremely aggressive effort, and there will be mistakes made and there have been mistakes made.’ She pointed to the firings, and rehiring, of researchers working on avian influenza as one of those mistakes.”

“‘That is a really important part of this as we are moving at Trump speed and there will be some mistakes made, and we will fully take responsibility for it and recognize when that happens,’ Rollins told reporters,” Clayton reported.

“Sen. Amy Klobuchar, D-Minn., ranking member of the U.S. Senate Agriculture Committee, called for USDA to comply with the order and said the decision to reinstate the employees ‘is an important but temporary step’ to help ensure USDA serves farmers and rural communities,” Clayton reported. “‘It is one thing to institute reforms. It is another to gut services and stop or delay work on avian flu, wildfires, rural hospitals and infrastructure projects, farm loans, and disaster relief,’ Klobuchar said. ‘USDA should immediately comply with this order.’“