Earlier this month SBA rescinded all of its terminations, only to re-fire most of those employees days later. @bluemaumau/Flickr
Some fired probationary feds are receiving unexpected emails: 'You're re-hired'
Some offices within federal agencies are backtracking on their recent firing sprees.
A Small Business Administration employee received a dreaded phone call from her manager last week. Check your inbox, the supervisor said.
The employee was out on medical leave so it was not until that Feb. 11 call that she saw the termination notice. She was in her probationary period and, like many others at SBA, had been let go. She and her manager were shocked. She had only recently received a monetary award for her work and was now being fired ostensibly for poor performance.
“I really loved my job,” she said. “I went home every day with a sense of satisfaction that I was giving my all to the success of my small businesses and my community.”
A week later, she received an email to her personal account from the SBA she again did not expect. The agency only had that address so her manager could contact her when she was on medical leave.
“I have decided to reinstate your employment, effective immediately,” SBA acting Director Everett Woodel wrote.
She would be retroactively placed on administrative leave from the time of her initial firing through Tuesday, Feb. 18. She was told to start working again on Wednesday.
SBA has handled the firing process clumsily from the start. Earlier this month it rescinded all of its terminations, only to re-fire most of those employees days later. The employee who was just rehired also received that series of three emails—the firing, the rescission of the firing and the re-firing, only to be re-hired this week. The agency did not respond to multiple requests for comment and it is not yet clear how widespread this week’s revocations are, though the impacted employee said the same thing happened to at least one other person in her regional office.
An Energy Department employee in her probationary period went through a similar, though more expedited experience last week. The employee received a termination notice on Feb. 14. She was devastated. Some of the employees she managed were also impacted. About 12 hours later, she received another email.
“I have received amplifying guidance indicating you should not have been on the list for termination and you may disregard the previous email,” it said. “You have not been terminated.”
That was the entirety of the notice. The employee has received no further guidance as to why she was un-fired, but knows of one colleague who went through the same process.
That employee did not work at the Bonneville Power Administration, which manages parts of the power grid in the Pacific Northwest, where Energy also rescinded firings this week. Those rescissions were first reported by Politico. Nor was she at the National Nuclear Security Administration, where, according to multiple reports, the Energy has is looking to roll back all of its firings.
The Trump administration last week began firing thousands of federal employees who are in their probationary periods, typically those hired within the past one to two years depending on their hiring mechanism. Such workers have weaker civil service job protections. The Trump administration has, in some cases, included longtime government employees that were recently hired or promoted into new positions, though the legal rationale for quickly dismissing those workers is less clear.
Other agencies throughout government have also walked back some of their firings. As it continues to respond to the avian flu outbreak, the Agriculture Department has exempted positions from the firings including veterinarians, animal health technicians and other emergency response personnel. Over the weekend, however, it sent termination notices to some of those employees.
“We are working to swiftly rectify the situation and rescind those letters,” a department spokesperson said. The rescissions were first reported by NBC News.
USDA’s Food Safety Inspection Service will continue to hire to meet its needs, the spokesperson added, though FSIS has faced some roadblocks to onboarding new staff thanks to President Trump’s hiring freeze. An FSIS employee told Government Executive on Wednesday some staff there received emails looking to confirm they would like to take the administration’s “deferred resignation” offers, though the employees had never indicated an interest in the first place. Those employees had an option to respond that they were not interested.
The Indian Health Service was set to fire 950 employees last week and told those workers by phone they would be let go, according to Indian Country Today, but the Health and Human Services Department intervened at the 11th hour and canceled the terminations.
Employees caught in the back and forth expressed relief to have their jobs back, but uncertain of what the future would hold.
“Honestly I’m just waiting to be re-fired,” the Energy employee said.
The SBA employee who has now been fired and re-hired on two separate occasions in the last two weeks said she was not clear why she is back at the agency, speculating it could be because they realized her value or were worried about their lack of a justification.
“I'm grateful to have my job back, but I do not feel any stability,” the employee said. “It's bittersweet that I will go back to the work that I love with the thought that, with no notice, my life may be turned upside down. Again.”