The Trump administration has notified more than 1,000 employees at the Environmental Protection Agency that they could be dismissed immediately.
Workers who’ve been at the agency less than one year received an email last week notifying them that they had been identified as employees that were likely on a “probationary/ trial period,” according to an email reviewed by NBC News.
“As a probationary/ trial period employee, the agency has the right to immediately terminate you,” the email says. “The process for probationary removal is that you receive a notice of termination, and your employment is ended immediately.”
About 1,100 employees received the email, according to Marie Owens Powell, president of the American Federation of Government Employees Council 238, a union that represents about 8,500 EPA staffers. Powell said she had received the list of employees from the agency.
“No probationary employee has been let go yet,” Powell said. “It was scary for people to receive the message, as you can imagine, and we’re inundated with questions from those folks. The agency obviously can dismiss probationary employees, but it has to be for cause.”
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