Union Press Associates reports two big Government Worker Unions - the American Federation of Government Employees (AFGE) and the American Federation of State, County & Municipal Employees (AFSCME), are cheering a Federal Judge’s ruling that Republican President Donald Trump and his Office of Personnel Management (OPM) illegally terminated 25,000 probationary Federal Workers earlier this year. But in making his ruling against the firings permanent, U.S. District Judge William Alsup of San Francisco admitted it might have a limited practical effect. That’s because many if not most of the Workers have found other jobs. And this ruling, unlike Judge Alsup’s preliminary injunction, did not order the agencies to rehire the Workers. The U.S. Supreme Court had reversed that. Nevertheless, Judge Alsup ordered OPM and the agencies that it forced to fire the probationary Workers to remove all derogatory references to their dismissal “for poor performance.” There was no reason for the dismissals - other than Trump’s whim and the fact that those Workers were uniquely vulnerable. Either they were new hires or veteran Workers who had switched jobs and thus were on a probationary period in their new posts. Judge Alsup also ordered both Trump’s OPM and the agencies involved - the Departments of Veterans Affairs, Energy, Defense, Agriculture, Interior and Treasury, the Federal Aviation Administration and other Agencies - to send formal letters to each Worker informing them the dismissals were revoked. Judge Alsup had issued a preliminary injunction against the firings, which were among the first of Trump’s and Elon Musk’s chainsaw hacking of the Federal Workforce earlier this year. But his order was halted pending a trial on the merits and Trump and his Personnel Office Chief lost that too. 

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