PEORIA, Ill. – The Trump administration’s efforts to reduce the federal workforce have now hit Peoria.
According to 25 News, more than 10-percent of the probationary employees at the Peoria Ag Lab have been fired.
American Federation of Government Employees Local 3247 President Ethan Roberts says 12 employees received an email last week telling them that they were fired immediately, and he says seven more will likely be let go this week.
Roberts tells 25 News, almost all of those fired were probationary employees with bachelor’s degrees in their first year of employment at the Ag Lab. He says most of them were lab technicians.
One of the termination letters obtained by 25 News reads: “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.”
The notice did not come from management at the Ag Lab or the Agricultural Research Service (ARS). It came from a federal agency above the ARS.
Roberts argues none of the workers had performance issues, and some didn’t have performance reviews yet.
For these reasons, Roberts claims there is no way the federal agency would know how employees at the Ag Lab were performing.
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