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EPA Workers Receive Emails Warning their Employment might Be Terminated

More than 1,100 staff members at the Agency received notification this week that they were deemed to be on probationary status and cautioning they could be fired immediately, according to an email obtained by CNN.

Probationary staff members getting the e-mail have been working at the company for less than a year. The emails started to go out late on Wednesday afternoon, according to an EPA union authorities.

The exact same message will be sent out to other agency labor forces, a White House official stated. Across the US federal government, the most recent data programs there are more than 220,000 staff members on probation.

“As a probationary/trial period staff member, the agency has the right to immediately terminate you pursuant to 5 CFR § 315.804,” the EPA email to probationary employees reads. “The process for probationary elimination is that you receive a notice of termination, and your employment is ended instantly.”

“Each staff member’s status will be determined individually,” the email includes.

The e-mail also spells out an appeals process employees can require to see if they are qualified for additional protection.

The approach is similar to how Elon Musk, now a key Trump consultant, dealt with layoffs when he bought Twitter – make a new e-mail alias (in this case, [email protected]) and then send out mass termination letters to everyone on it.

The US Office of Personnel Management declined to comment, referall.us and the White House and EPA did not react to demands for additional comment.

The EPA union official said these probationary employees aren’t the same as at-will workers; they have less security than tenured workers, but they have rights to appeal.

The union authorities said EPA will have to make a finding regarding each and every single probationary staff member that is being let go – either that their efficiency is bad or that they had a disciplinary concern. Veterans and those with tenure have additional layers of protection. Attorneys who work at the EPA and AFGE, the union representing a a great deal of EPA workers, are counseling individuals who are probationary employees on how to react to these e-mails and waiting to see what even more action is taken.

The EPA e-mails come after the Office of Personnel Management sent out a mass email to federal workers Tuesday night telling them if they resign now, they would be paid through September 30 although they likely wouldn’t have to work, or might a minimum of keep working remotely.

The e-mail defined that those who choose not to choose into the program – described as a “deferred resignation” deal – can’t be offered “complete guarantee regarding the certainty” of their position or company progressing. It added that, needs to their task be gotten rid of, they “will be treated with dignity and will be paid for the securities in location for such positions.”

The email, sent out from a brand-new federal government alias [email protected], consisted of the subject line “Fork in the Road,” the same subject line of a demand message Musk sent out to his workers at Twitter in 2022.

Musk has made clear in recent months that a leading concern for the Department of Government Efficiency, which he is helming, would be to rid the federal workforce of workers considered as underperforming.

Marie Owens Powell, president of American Federation of Government Employees Council 238, said spirits at EPA was suffering.

“It’s bad, it’s most likely the worst I have actually ever seen,” she stated. “I have actually never seen anything like this. Literally every day, folks hesitate to turn their computers on. They don’t understand what message will be coming out next.”

Mass layoffs of probationary staff members might disproportionately impact more youthful employees, stated Rob Shriver, acting director of OPM under President Joe Biden.

“There has been a longstanding battle to get younger people interested in civil service,” Shriver said. “We worked hard to repair that, employing roughly 13% more people under the age of 30 in 2024 than 2023.