MARY LOUISE KELLY, HOST:
More than 10,000 federal employees have been fired since last week - mainly those who were in their first or second year on the job. Such probationary employees lack job protections. Now, attorneys are preparing to file class action lawsuits. NPR's Andrea Hsu talked with two workers at the U.S. Department of Agriculture who are prepared to join the fight.
ANDREA HSU, BYLINE: Michelle Kirchner was a post-doc based out of the USDA's bee lab in Logan, Utah.
MICHELLE KIRCHNER: I was working directly with farmers and growers of alfalfa.
HSU: Alfalfa - what dairy cows eat. She was helping the farmers figure out how to control pests while not harming the pollinators, the kind of research that's not usually in the crosshairs of political fights.
KIRCHNER: Just because it's people's food and, like, you shouldn't mess with people's food.
HSU: And then there's Derek Copeland, a retired Air Force veteran who spent much of his military career in a canine unit. Last year, he took those skills to the USDA's National Detector Dog Training Center in Newnan, Georgia.
DEREK COPELAND: We train the dogs to find agricultural products that are not supposed to come in from other countries.
HSU: He also trains the handlers - the officers from Customs and Border Protection who patrol airports and ports of entry along the border.
COPELAND: They will screen bags, cars, passengers, cargo warehouses.
HSU: The dogs sniff out products that carry disease, things that could wreak havoc on...
COPELAND: Our whole food system.
HSU: Copeland and Kirchner were both in their first year at USDA. She had about two months left in her probationary period. He had 11 days. Last Friday, they got pretty much the same termination letter. It said...
KIRCHNER: Based on my performance, I had not demonstrated that my further employment would be in the public interest.
COPELAND: We don't feel that it's in the public interest to keep you on.
HSU: Both found the language shocking and offensive.
KIRCHNER: Like, it's objectively not true.
HSU: In her 10 months on the job, Kirchner had received only positive performance reviews. She and her colleague even won a $25,000 grant to dig in more on protecting pollinators. Their proposal was chosen by the alfalfa growers themselves.
KIRCHNER: They were very excited about it. I had many of them tell me that personally.
HSU: Copeland had also received stellar performance reviews.
COPELAND: Everything was great and successfully meets, and there was no issues at all.
HSU: And this is why they and others plan to sue. David Branch thinks they'd have a case. He's a longtime employment attorney in Washington, D.C. He says probationary employees, like all Americans, have due process rights under the Fifth Amendment. There are things the government can't do.
DAVID BRANCH: They can't tarnish your reputation. They can't infringe upon your liberty interest. You have a liberty interest in your name, in your reputation.
HSU: The challenge, Branch says, will be convincing a judge that the termination letters citing inadequate performance are defamatory. He's advising federal employees to gather any feedback or comments to prove their point. The Trump administration says these terminations are all about cutting waste and making the government more efficient. To Branch, that doesn't make sense.
BRANCH: Probationary employees are usually the most industrious employees there. I mean, these folks know that they have a year to prove themselves - some folks two years - and if they don't, they can be terminated for any reason.
HSU: Michelle Kirchner says her co-workers in the Logan bee lab are all deeply committed to improving U.S. agriculture. It's why they're out there in the alfalfa fields in the heat of the summer.
KIRCHNER: There's no shade 'cause it's just alfalfa as far as the eye can see. The sun just, like, beats down on you all day, and there are just bugs everywhere.
HSU: And Derek Copeland is equally committed to giving back to his country.
COPELAND: You know, I gave blood, sweat and tears to this country for 20 years, and to continue service to the federal government and doing what I was trained to do by them, which is train dogs - I kind of feel like I was just thrown out like a piece of trash.
HSU: Neither Copeland nor Kirchner is ready to leave their job behind.
Andrea Hsu, NPR News. Transcript provided by NPR, Copyright NPR.
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