Alaska’s fired federal workers are beginning to file unemployment claims, following the Trump administration’s move to reduce the federal workforce.
As of Wednesday, 138 federal workers had filed claims so far, according to Paloma Harbour, a division director at the Alaska Department of Labor and Workforce Development.
Some workers fired en masse last month got dismissal emails alleging poor job performance, with no evidence cited.
Harbour testified to the Alaska House Judiciary Committee that such letters, by themselves, are not grounds to disqualify a claim.
“If an employer says that an employee was discharged due to misconduct, the burden is on them to prove it to us, so they have to provide us actual documentation,” she said.
True misconduct, Harbour said, like drinking on the job or stealing office equipment, would reduce a worker’s unemployment benefits. But, so far, the federal government has described the dismissals as layoffs, she said, with no allegations of misconduct complicating the unemployment claims.
Even if it doesn’t hurt their claims, federal civil servants say it stung doubly to be fired and falsely accused of doing a bad job.
Charles Warren Hill was, until recently, in charge of maintenance at Lake Clark National Park. He told legislators his dismissal letter came from someone he didn’t know in Washington, D.C., who claimed that he had not met performance goals and lacked the necessary experience.
“Clearly, they did not reference any of my superiors who would, if given the chance, speak in my favor,” Hill said, testifying to the committee by phone. “Instead, no one in Alaska Region has any influence and cannot provide me with any logical explanation. I have received only exceptional to outstanding performance reviews in my more than 20 years of service at Lake Clark, and I deserve at least an explanation.”
Despite his long tenure, Hill was considered a probationary employee because he’d been promoted.
Ex-employees like Hill are now in a kind of career purgatory, unsure if they are actually unemployed or not.
On Thursday, a judge in California ruled that the way the Trump administration fired probationary workers last month was illegal. He ordered the administration to offer jobs back to the employees dismissed from six departments, including the Interior Department, which includes the National Park Service.
The administration has denounced the ruling and indicated it intends to appeal.
