The U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) announced Tuesday that all recently terminated probationary employees will be rehired, with back pay — starting Wednesday. That’s to comply with a March 12 deadline imposed by an independent federal board.
The Merit Systems Protections Board ordered the department to temporarily reinstate the roughly 6,000 USDA workers who have been fired in recent weeks. That total reportedly includes more than 3,400 Forest Service workers, a USDA branch with a sizable footprint in Alaska.
Matt Brossard is a representative with the National Federation of Federal Employees, a union that represents federal workers. He said the fired employees will be reinstated on paid administrative leave, for now.
“They’re working on a plan to get them back in their normal positions and off of administrative leave, immediately,” Brossard said.
But the reinstatements are temporary. The Merit Systems Protections Board acts as an internal court to consider federal employee’s complaints against the government. Last week, the board found “reasonable grounds to believe” that the firings had been illegal, and ordered USDA to rehire the workers for 45 days while an investigation plays out.
In the weeks since the terminations happened, some employees may have made other plans or moved on. Brossard said workers are being automatically reinstated, so if they no longer want the job, they’ll likely need to resign.
“We could have had people that moved away because they couldn’t afford to live where they were and they moved back home — or you know, out of Alaska, or wherever they were working,” Brossard said.
Communities across Alaska have been protesting federal firings in recent weeks, especially within the Forest Service, which is a major employer in many Southeast communities. Among other things, employees work to maintain the nearly 17 million acres of the Tongass, the nation’s largest national forest.
