WASHINGTON, D.C. (Business Insider) — Melanie Mattox Green’s most recent performance review in October lauded her “incredible” self-initiative, “superior quality” work, and efforts to promote “efficiencies” on her team.
She was fired last week based on her performance, along with thousands of other federal probationary workers.
“It’s a low blow, and it’s completely baseless,” the former US Forest Service employee told Business Insider, adding, “If these terminations were truly about performance, then why were thousands of well-reviewed employees let go?”
Thomas Wartenberg is another US Forest Service worker who was terminated last week. His notice said: “The Agency finds, based on your performance, that you have not demonstrated that your further employment at the Agency would be in the public interest.”
“It’s a real slap in the face to say it’s for performance reasons,” Wartenberg, who said he received positive performance reviews during his year-plus tenure at the agency, told BI.
Wartenberg, along with some other fired federal workers who BI spoke with, are planning to fight their terminations through an appeals process, and some of them said they were seeking to join lawsuits on behalf of fired federal workers.
BI has talked to dozens of workers over the past few weeks, including some who said they voted for President Donald Trump, and they’ve overwhelmingly said they disagree with his treatment of the federal workforce.
“People are pretty fired up about it,” Wartenberg said, adding that workers were further fueled by the fact it’s the Trump administration — and not individual agency supervisors — that’s spearheading the terminations. “It’s not like our forest service leadership is screwing us over. So I think that gives us more of a sense of, ‘We’re going to fight this.'”
‘One of the best jobs I ever had’
The termination notices that BI reviewed said employees could appeal their firings “only if you feel this action was based on discrimination of partisan political activity or marital status.”
A Department of Agriculture worker said they’d try the appeals process, but they and many former coworkers they’d spoken with were more hopeful that litigation would restore their jobs. They requested anonymity to speak freely without fear of professional repercussions.
“Besides just being really sad by the whole thing, I have to find work, so that is what I am focused on,” the worker said. “I hope I get a call back eventually saying, ‘Come on back,’ but I can’t wait for it.”
The worker said they frequently received positive feedback from supervisors, but they hadn’t been at USDA long enough to receive the performance metrics that the termination letter cited.
“I’d like to go back,” the worker said. “It was still one of the best jobs I ever had.”
The firings follow a Trump administration memo in early February asking government agencies to identify their lowest-performing employees. So far, firings have mostly targeted probationary employees, who have fewer protections than longer-term employees.
Michael Fallings, a partner at the law firm Tully Rinckey PLLC, said he believed the administration was citing performance because, while it isn’t required to give advanced notice to terminate probationary workers, it is required to provide a reason.
“Those reasons have to be grounded in performance or conduct,” Fallings said. “And so the administration, it appears, is trying to say that their reason for terminating these employees is performance.”
It’s happening in the private sector as well. Meta recently laid off thousands of employees, citing underperformance. Many have taken to LinkedIn to refute that label.
