Judge halts mass firings of federal workers at some agencies

Contributing sentiments towards policy:

54% : Ezell said the individual agencies were "responsible" for taking their own action to cut jobs and review workers' performance.
53% : At a hearing on Thursday afternoon, US District Judge William Alsup ordered the Office of Personnel Management to inform certain federal agencies that it had no authority to order the firings of probationary employees, including the Department of Defense.
52% : Lawyers representing the workers' interests have vowed to try to expand the board's finding to apply to thousands more probationary workers.
41% : Alsup, who was appointed by President Bill Clinton, a Democrat, has presided over many high-profile cases and is known for his blunt talk.
39% : "This ruling by Judge Alsup is an important initial victory for patriotic Americans across this country who were illegally fired from their jobs by an agency that had no authority to do so," Everett Kelley, national president of the American Federation of Government Employees, said in a statement.

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