Court-Issued Stay Puts Sitkans Back at Work

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Category: News

Created on Thursday, 13 March 2025 15:39

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GARLAND KENNEDY
Sentinel Staff Writer

A month after the mass firing of probationary workers with the U.S. Forest Service, the Department of Agriculture issued a temporary stay on the terminations Tuesday.

In Sitka, eight Forest Service employees were fired in mid-February, including all on the cabin and trails crew and one managing the Redoubt Lake salmon weir, among others. Around 3,400 Forest Service workers across the nation were affected in the mass terminations, as were workers with many other federal agencies.

Scores of protesters gather at the roundabout Saturday afternoon for what has become a weekly protest of Trump administration policies and actions. In Sitka, eight Forest Service employees were fired in mid-February, including all on the cabin and trails crew and one managing the Redoubt Lake salmon weir, among others. (Sentinel Photo by James Poulson)

A USDA press release issued March 11 said, "By Wednesday, March 12, the Department will place all terminated probationary employees in pay status and provide each with back pay, from the date of termination."

The stay will last for 45 days, USDA wrote, but the announcement did not offer details on what will follow that period.

Two probationary workers at Sitka National Historical Park also lost their jobs in the mass terminations, but they were not included in the USDA reinstatement order since their employment is through the Department of the Interior, not Agriculture.

However, earlier today, a federal judge in California ruled that the government will have to rehire all terminated probationary workers. In his decision, Judge William Alsup wrote that "it was a sham in order to try to avoid statutory requirements."

USDA 's job reinstatement decision follows an order issued March 5 by the U.S. Merit Systems Protection Board staying terminations by the USFS and certain other federal agencies "in which there are reasonable grounds to believe that each of the six agencies engaged in a prohibited personnel practice" by firing all probationary workers en masse, without cause.

"The Department will work quickly to develop a phased plan for return-to-duty, and while those plans materialize, all probationary employees will be paid," the USDA announcement said.

While the press release states terminated workers will receive back pay, an unofficial source familiar with USFS employment procedures said it appears unlikely that the probational "permanent seasonal" workers, and the workers in Sitka would qualify, since their work season had not started, and they were not being paid at the time they were fired.

Sitka District Ranger Eric Garner declined to comment on actions of the administration.

Local Forest Service workers who spoke to the Sentinel said they heard about the possible reversal of the firings on Friday, and credit the decision to rehire staff, at least for a time, to the ruling earlier this month by Judge Alsup, who said at the time the administration's mass firing of probationary workers without cause was illegal.

After the mass firing of the Sitka USFS cabins and trail crew in February, the nonprofit Sitka Trail Works launched a fundraiser to pay the terminated workers to do the seasonal maintenance work on national forest lands that directly benefits the public. The fundraiser has since raised about $114,000 toward the goal of $160,000.