The U.S. Office of Special Counsel (OSC) tonight announces that the U.S. Merit Systems Protection Board (MSPB) has granted initial requests to “stay," or pause, the terminations of six probationary employees across various executive branch agencies.
The stays, requested by OSC last Friday, provide the impacted federal employees with a 45-day postponement of their terminations because OSC found reasonable grounds to believe that agencies engaged in prohibited personnel practices (PPPs) under 5 U.S.C. § 2302(b)(12). The stays provide OSC additional time to investigate the circumstances surrounding those terminations to determine whether a PPP has occurred.
In its order granting the stays, the MSPB wrote:
Particularly considering the deference that must be afforded to OSC at this initial stage, I find that there are reasonable grounds to believe that each of the six agencies engaged in a prohibited personnel practice under 5 U.S.C. § 2302(b)(12).
“I am very grateful the MSPB has agreed to postpone these six terminations," said Special Counsel Hampton Dellinger. “These stays represent a small sample of all the probationary employees who have been fired recently so our work is far from done. Agency leaders should know that OSC will continue to pursue allegations of unlawful personnel actions, which can include asking MSPB for relief for a broader group of fired probationary employees. I urge agency leaders to voluntarily and immediately rescind any and every unlawful termination of probationary employees."
***