Federal employees who were fired from one of the busiest parks on the Oregon coast have been rehired, as the Trump administration responds to court orders that declared sweeping layoffs announced earlier this year to be unlawful.
All three probationary employees at Yaquina Head who were fired by the Bureau of Land Management in February have been offered their jobs back, park manager Ricardo Escobar confirmed Thursday. Of those, two of the employees accepted the offer and are in the midst of transitioning back into their positions; one employee declined, he confirmed.
Yaquina Head has also received the green light to hire two seasonal employees this season, Escobar confirmed. The park, which typically has more than half a dozen seasonal employees, will still be short staffed this summer, which may result in limited programming and hours, according to Friends of Yaquina Lighthouse, a nonprofit that supports the park.
The fired workers, three of the park’s nine total employees, were in charge of educational programming, operating the visitor center, collecting entrance fees and roving the park to make sure people follow the rules and perform what the park calls “preventative search and rescue,” making sure people explore the rocky coastline safely.
After they were fired, the park immediately shortened its operating hours and the hours of its visitor center. Now that two have been rehired, the park will revert to its typical winter hours, from 8 a.m. to 5 p.m., effective April 11, Escobar said. He could not comment on how or whether the summer hours would be affected by continued staffing shortages.
The Bureau of Land Management declined to offer specifics about rehired employees across the Pacific Northwest, and declined to answer questions about whether rehired employees would be given any sort of job security as the Trump administration continues to scale back the federal workforce.
The decision to rehire probationary employees followed a court ruling that found the firings to be unlawful. A federal judge in March ordered federal agencies to reinstate the workers.
“In compliance with court orders, the Department of the Interior is reinstating probationary employees. All impacted employees will receive back pay, and the Department will ensure continued compensation as the White House pursues its appeals process,” a Department of Interior spokesperson said over email Thursday.
The employees who were offered their jobs back did not immediately respond to messages requesting comment, but last week two of them told the Lincoln Chronicle that they are uncertain of their future with the agency.
Martin Desmond, president of Friends of Yaquina Lighthouses, said the decision to rehire the employees is something to celebrate, though not necessarily indicative of positive change.
“This is something that should have never happened in the first place,” Desmond said. “These employees get terminated on just utterly specious terms and so now we’re sort of getting back to where we were two months or so ago.”
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