More than 1,100 workers at the Environmental Protection Agency received notice today that they were deemed to be on probationary status and alerting they might be fired immediately, according to an e-mail gotten by CNN.

Probationary staff members getting the e-mail have been operating at the agency for less than a year. The e-mails started to go out late on Wednesday afternoon, according to an EPA union authorities.

The same message will be sent out to other agency labor forces, a White House official stated. Across the US government, the most recent data shows there are more than 220,000 employees on probation.

"As a probationary/trial period worker, the firm has the right to right away end you pursuant to 5 CFR § 315.804," the EPA e-mail to probationary staff members reads. "The process for probationary elimination is that you receive a notice of termination, and your employment is ended right away."

"Each staff member's status will be identified individually," the email includes.

The email also spells out an appeals procedure workers can require to see if they are qualified for extra protection.

The method is similar to how Elon Musk, now a crucial Trump advisor, handled layoffs when he bought Twitter - make a new e-mail alias (in this case, notice@epa.gov) and after that send out mass termination letters to everyone on it.

The US Office of Personnel Management declined to comment, and the White House and EPA did not react to requests for extra remark.

The EPA union official said these probationary workers aren't the like at-will staff members; they have less defense than tenured staff members, however they have rights to appeal.

The union official said EPA will need to make a finding regarding each and every single probationary employee that is being release - either that their performance is bad or that they had a disciplinary issue. Veterans and those with period have additional layers of defense. Attorneys who operate at the EPA and AFGE, the union representing a big number of EPA workers, are counseling individuals who are probationary employees on how to react to these e-mails and employment waiting to see what further action is taken.

The EPA emails followed the Office of Personnel Management sent a mass e-mail to federal workers Tuesday night telling them if they resign now, they would be paid through September 30 even though they likely would not need to work, or could a minimum of keep working from another location.

The email specified that those who pick not to decide into the program - referred to as a "deferred resignation" offer - can't be offered "complete assurance regarding the certainty" of their position or firm progressing. It included that, needs to their job be gotten rid of, they "will be treated with self-respect and will be paid for the defenses in place for such positions."

The email, sent out from a new government alias HR1@opm.gov, contained the subject line "Fork in the Road," the very same subject line of an ultimatum message Musk sent out to his workers at Twitter in 2022.

Musk has made clear in recent months that a leading concern for the Department of Government Efficiency, which he is helming, would be to rid the federal labor force of employees considered as underperforming.

Marie Owens Powell, president of of Government Employees Council 238, said morale at EPA was suffering.

"It's bad, it's most likely the worst I have actually ever seen," she stated. "I have actually never ever seen anything like this. Literally every day, folks are afraid to turn their computers on. They don't know what message will be coming out next."

Mass layoffs of probationary staff members could disproportionately impact younger employees, stated Rob Shriver, acting director of OPM under President Joe Biden.

"There has actually been a longstanding battle to get more youthful individuals thinking about public service," Shriver said. "We strove to fix that, hiring roughly 13% more people under the age of 30 in 2024 than 2023.