Probationary federal employees in Montana given temporary reprieve, Zinke says

Republican Congressman Ryan Zinke said Friday that Forest Service and National Park Service probationary workers terminated earlier this year by the Trump administration will get their jobs back — at least for the time being. 

On Tuesday, the U.S. Merit Systems Protection Board issued a ruling requiring the U.S. Department of Agriculture to temporarily reinstate nearly 6,000 workers. As a result of the stay, all affected probationary Forest Service employees will be reinstated from March 5 to April 18. 

They could lose their jobs again after April 18, but the Forest Service could ask for an extension to the stay, an aide to Zinke said Friday. 

Following the Tuesday Merit Board ruling, a federal judge ruled that the firings were in violation of federal law. 

Zinke also said Glacier National Park has been hiring seasonal employees after restrictions on the Park Service were relaxed as well.  

“Seasonal hiring is proceeding and Glacier leadership is confident that as long as Senate Democrats do not shut down the federal government then the park hiring and plowing will progress on schedule,” Zinke said a statement. “While two probationary (Park Service) employees were laid off, the park has a plan moving forward to ensure the world class experience that Montanans and visitors seek will remain intact.” 

The congressman also spoke to the Forest Service re-hiring.  

“President [Donald] Trump rightfully exempted seasonal hires from layoffs but when the previous administration reclassified thousands of experienced USFS seasonal workers as probationary employees, they got caught in the reduction of force. The recent ruling to bring back those employees creates an opportunity for [the Department of Government Efficiency] to set their sights on the real waste — the overpaid lawyers, biologists and environmental zealots and the to- heavy bureaucracy. The guys and gals on the frontlines maintaining trails, harvesting trees and supporting fire camps are seasonal and should be classified as such as they always had been before Biden changed it,” Zinke said in an emailed statement. 

The Biden administration last year implemented a new structure for hiring seasonal employees that made them permanent workers with benefits, though the jobs themselves were seasonal. 

The move was lauded by Forest Service officials at the time because it meant stability in the workforce. Under the previous system, seasonal employees lost their jobs at the end of season and then had to be rehired, as in the case of trail crew workers, every spring.  

Many seasonal workers last year, in turn, took the new permanent, but seasonal positions. But they were also considered probationary because the positions were technically new. They lost their jobs in the initial round of cuts made by the Department of Government Efficiency, also known as DOGE. The agency-issued letter that terminated their employment claimed they were being fired for poor performance, which angered some employees as much as losing their jobs, as they were long-time workers with previous excellent reviews. 

The cuts had devastating impacts to some Forest Service crews. The trail crew on the Rocky Mountain Ranger District, for example, went from 12 down to three, one employee told the Hungry Horse News. The district includes some of the most scenic and coveted areas of the Bob Marshall Wilderness, including the Chinese Wall. 

All told, about 360 Forest Service workers lost their jobs and sources said about 40 of them were on the Flathead National Forest. 

The Biden administration also put a hiring freeze in place last fall. So the outlook for “boots on the ground” employees for this season was going to be less than previous years to begin with. 

The Department of Government Efficiency cuts brought lawsuits. On Thursday, U.S. District Court for the Northern District of California Judge William Alsup granted a preliminary injunction broadening a previous temporary restraining order against the Office of Personnel Management and its acting director, Charles Ezell, finding the termination of probationary federal employees illegal because office had no authority to order it. 

A federal judge in Maryland was also expected to rule similarly. 

Alsup ordered immediate reinstatement of terminated probationary employees of the Veterans Affairs, Agriculture, Interior, Energy, Defense and Treasury departments, and these agencies must cease termination of probationary employees, effective immediately.  

The judge also forbade the Office of Personnel Management from giving any guidance to federal agencies on which employees should be terminated. 

But the Trump administration said it planned on appealing the rulings on Friday, according to The Washington Post.

The administration is still pushing for large reductions in the federal workforce, court rulings aside. 

"These mass-firings of federal workers were not just an attack on government agencies and their ability to function, they were also a direct assault on public lands, wildlife and the rule of law," said Erik Molvar, executive director of Western Watersheds Project, one of the plaintiffs in the suit challenging the firings. "This is just the first wave of assaults in a broader campaign by the Trump administration and its DOGE cartel to sabotage our government and dismantle protections for America’s lands and wildlife. But through the federal courts, our coalition has repelled this attack, and the judge has now ordered the federal agencies to re-hire the workers that were fired illegally. We will continue to strike back — relentlessly — against assaults on western public lands and wildlife." 

Alsup also had harsh words for the Trump administration, the Post reported, citing cases of employees who received “glowing” or “fully” satisfactory evaluations before being fired. 

“That doesn’t look right,” Alsup said at the hearing last month, before issuing the temporary restraining order the Post reported. “That’s just not right in our country, is it? That we run our agencies with lies like that and stain somebody’s record for the rest of their life? Who is going to want to work in a government that would do that to them?”