More than 1,100 employees at the Environmental Protection Agency got notice today that they were considered to be on probationary status and alerting they might be fired right away, according to an email gotten by CNN.
Probationary staff members receiving the e-mail have been working at the agency for less than a year. The e-mails started to go out late on Wednesday afternoon, according to an EPA union authorities.
The same will be sent to other agency labor forces, a White House authorities said. Across the US government, the most recent data shows there are more than 220,000 workers on probation.
"As a probationary/trial duration staff member, the agency can right away terminate you pursuant to 5 CFR § 315.804," the EPA e-mail to probationary employees reads. "The process for probationary removal is that you get a notice of termination, and your employment is ended instantly."
"Each employee's status will be determined separately," the email includes.
The e-mail also spells out an appeals process employees can take to see if they are eligible for additional security.
The approach resembles how Elon Musk, now an essential Trump adviser, job handled layoffs when he purchased Twitter - make a new email alias (in this case, job notice@epa.gov) and then send out mass termination letters to everyone on it.
The US Office of Personnel Management decreased to comment, and the White House and EPA did not react to ask for additional comment.
The EPA union official said these probationary staff members aren't the exact same as at-will employees; they have less protection than tenured employees, however they have rights to appeal.
The union official stated EPA will need to make a finding as to every probationary worker that is being release - either that their performance is bad or that they had a disciplinary concern. Veterans and those with tenure have additional layers of defense. Attorneys who operate at the EPA and job AFGE, the union representing a a great deal of EPA employees, are counseling individuals who are probationary employees on how to respond to these e-mails and waiting to see what even more action is taken.
The EPA emails followed the Office of Personnel Management sent out a mass e-mail to federal employees Tuesday night telling them if they resign now, they would be paid through September 30 even though they likely wouldn't need to work, or could a minimum of keep working remotely.
The email defined that those who select not to opt into the program - described as a "deferred resignation" deal - can't be given "full guarantee concerning the certainty" of their position or company moving forward. It added that, should their job be eliminated, they "will be treated with dignity and will be managed the protections in place for such positions."
The email, sent from a brand-new federal government alias HR1@opm.gov, included the subject line "Fork in the Road," the very same subject line of an ultimatum message Musk sent out to his workers at Twitter in 2022.
Musk has made clear in current months that a leading concern for the Department of Government Efficiency, which he is helming, would be to rid the federal workforce of employees deemed as underperforming.
Marie Owens Powell, job president of American Federation of Government Employees Council 238, said morale at EPA was suffering.
"It's bad, it's most likely the worst I have actually ever seen," she said. "I have actually never seen anything like this. Literally every day, folks are scared to turn their computers on. They don't understand what message will be coming out next."
Mass layoffs of probationary workers could disproportionately impact younger workers, said 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, working with roughly 13% more people under the age of 30 in 2024 than 2023.
