Government Executive’s Jory Heckman reported that “a federal judge in San Francisco is considering a temporary pause of the Agriculture Department’s imminent plans to relocate employees across the country.“
“U.S. District Court Judge Vince Chhabria told attorneys in a hearing Thursday that he may need to issue a ‘brief administrative stay’ in order to get up to speed on the facts of the case,” Heckman reported. “But U.S. District Court Judge Susan Illston, in a ruling last week, allowed USDA to proceed with its relocation plans and urged plaintiffs to file a new lawsuit if they wanted to keep challenging the agency’s reorganization. Plaintiffs filed a new lawsuit with the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of California this week.”
“Chhabria said he plans on issuing an administrative stay that would block USDA from moving forward with its relocation plans until Oct. 2,” Heckman reported. “‘Only if I extend it beyond that will it go beyond that,’ he said. The court’s next hearing in this case is currently slated for Sept. 29.”
“Chhabria said an administrative stay ‘doesn’t say anything about the merits,’ or ‘whether it’s a strong or weak case or anything,’ but would give him more time to ‘adjudicate this properly,'” Heckman reported. “‘I don’t have a problem with slowing down the schedule. In fact, I think it would be better for everybody involved. Because like I said, these issues appear to be very complicated and Judge Illston’s been dealing with them for a long time, but I haven’t had to deal with anything remotely like this before,’ he said.”
What is in the New Lawsuit?
Federal News Network’s Drew Friedman reported that “the new legal action comes shortly after a federal judge denied the plaintiffs’ motion for a preliminary injunction in a separate lawsuit involving the Trump administration’s broader federal workforce reductions. A Sept. 2 decision from U.S. District Court Judge Susan Illston allowed USDA’s reorganization plans to continue for the time being, ruling that the plaintiffs’ motion belonged in its own lawsuit rather than being folded into the broader case.”
“The plaintiffs in the new lawsuit include the American Federation of Government Employees, the American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees, the National Federation of Federal Employees and the National Treasury Employees Union — all unions representing employees in various USDA components affected by the reorganization,” Friedman reported.
“In an Aug. 28 court filing, an acting official at USDA stated that 64% of the 725 USDA employees who have, so far, been told to relocate have accepted their reassignments,” Friedman reported. “‘In other words, at least one out of three relocated employees is leaving the agency rather than relocating,’ the unions countered. ‘That rate substantially understates the actual number of workers who will ultimately be unable to report to their new locations for a variety of reasons, including because it does not include workers who are unable to relocate but initially ‘accepted’ relocation in order to pursue hardship exemptions or reasonable accommodations to avoid moving.'”
“The plaintiffs further argued that the reorganization is a veiled attempt to conduct a reduction in force, as USDA has not outlined plans to replace employees who choose to leave their jobs rather than accept a management-directed reassignment (MDR),” Friedman reported. “Hundreds, if not thousands, more MDR letters are expected to go out to USDA employees imminently, the lawsuit states. The planned reassignments will lead to ‘widespread attrition,’ the unions argued, as many of the D.C.-based employees being told to relocate cannot do so for personal and financial reasons.”
Employees Dispute USDA Claim that Most Workers will Relocate
Heckman reported in a different article that “the Agriculture Department is telling a federal court that a majority of employees who received relocation notices so far have agreed to relocate – a higher acceptance rate than what the department experienced with a smaller-scale relocation under the first Trump administration.”
“In an Aug. 28 court filing, Mary Pletcher Rice, USDA’s acting principal deputy assistant secretary for administration, told a federal judge in San Francisco that 725 USDA employees have received management directed reassignment (MDR) letters so far, and that 64% of them have accepted reassignment,” Heckman reported.
But “USDA employees who currently face relocation and the unions representing them say the department’s figures don’t reflect the number of employees who will actually move across the country to keep their jobs,” Heckman reported. “The department has sent relocation notices to less than a third of the approximately 2,500 employees expected to receive them. The department did not immediately respond to a request for comment.”
“Some employees say they’ve accepted relocation notices because that is the only way they can proceed with a request for a hardship or medical exemption. Others say they have nominally agreed to relocate, but are still applying for other jobs. If that plan doesn’t work out, they may quit rather than move,” Heckman reported. “A Natural Resources Conservation Service employee told Government Executive that he accepted relocation, but only so that he has more time to look for another USDA job within the D.C. metro area.”
