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The Trump administration has quietly clarified a directive that spurred the firing of tens of thousands of government workers, after the lay-offs sowed chaos across the country.
特朗普政府悄然澄清了一项导致数万名政府工作人员被解雇的指令，此前这项裁员在全国范围内引发了混乱。
The move came in the form of a short update to a memo first circulated hours after President Donald Trump’s inauguration in January, asking government departments to compile a list of staff who had been employed for less than a year and justify their retention. As of May last year, this encompassed at least 200,000 federal workers.
这一举措是对一份备忘录的简短更新，该备忘录最初在唐纳德•特朗普总统1月就职几小时后发布，要求政府部门编制一份雇用不到一年的员工名单，并证明留用他们的理由。截至去年5月，这至少涉及20万名联邦雇员。
The memo from the Office of Personnel Management, or OPM, which has become a main vehicle for billionaire Trump ally Elon Musk’s cost-cutting drive, was interpreted by many agencies as a directive to let go of probationary employees, resulting in at least 20,000 lay-offs.
人事管理办公室(OPM)的备忘录已成为亿万富翁、特朗普盟友埃隆•马斯克(Elon Musk)削减成本的主要工具。许多机构将其解读为解雇试用期员工的指令，导致至少2万人被裁员。
Those fired in recent weeks include civilian staff at the defence department, employees working on veterans affairs and workers in charge of safeguarding America’s nuclear stockpiles.
最近几周被解雇的人包括国防部的文职人员、负责退伍军人事务的员工以及负责保护美国核储备的工作人员。
An addition to the memo appeared on Tuesday, saying “please note that, by this memorandum, OPM is not directing agencies to take any specific performance-based actions regarding probationary employees”. The OPM added that individual agencies had “responsibility for such personnel actions”.
周二，备忘录中新增了一项内容，指出“请注意，通过这份备忘录，人事管理办公室并未指示各机构对试用期员工采取任何特定的绩效措施”。人事管理办公室补充说，各个机构对这些人事行动负有“责任”。
The office declined to comment on the change. A person familiar with the OPM’s decision said it had always been up to agencies to determine wether to fire employees, and the edit was intended as a clarification “in light of a recent court order and some public misinformation”.
该办公室拒绝对这一变动发表评论。一位熟悉人事管理办公室决定的人士表示，是否解雇员工一直由各机构自行决定，此次修改旨在澄清“鉴于最近的法院命令和一些公众的误解”。
The new message came after a federal judge last week barred the OPM from firing probationary workers at specific government departments, clarifying that the office “does not have any authority whatsoever under any statute in the history of the universe to hire and fire employees at another agency”.
这一新消息是在上周一位联邦法官禁止人事管理办公室解雇特定政府部门的试用期员工之后发布的。法官明确指出，该办公室“在宇宙历史上的任何法律下都没有权力在其他机构雇佣和解雇员工”。
Judge William Alsup said there was a “mountain of evidence” that the OPM memo was taken as a directive, not mere guidance.
威廉•阿尔苏普(William Alsup)法官表示，有“大量证据”表明，人事管理办公室的备忘录被视为指令，而不仅仅是指导。
Alsup also reiterated that the “ongoing, en masse termination of probationary employees across the federal government’s agencies has sown significant chaos”.
阿尔苏普还重申，“联邦政府各机构正在大规模解雇试用期员工，这已经造成了严重的混乱”。
He cited the termination of more than 1,000 employees at the Department of Veterans Affairs that “crippled the agency’s administration of the Veterans Crisis Line”, which among other things offers emergency assistance to those contemplating suicide or self-harm.
他举例说，退伍军人事务部解雇了1000多名员工，“使该机构对退伍军人危机热线的管理陷入瘫痪”，而该热线除其他事项外，还为那些打算自杀或自残的人提供紧急援助。
While Alsop did not order agencies to reinstate those who had already been fired, some departments have already begun to do so. Some probationary employees fired from the National Science Foundation last month began to be rehired on Monday, the agency said in a statement.
虽然阿尔苏普没有命令各机构重新雇用那些已经被解雇的人，但一些部门已经开始这样做。美国国家科学基金会在一份声明中说，该机构上个月解雇的一些试用期员工已于本周一开始重新受雇。
The US government was also forced last month to rehire employees at the National Nuclear Security Administration.
美国政府上个月也被迫重新雇用了国家核安全局的员工。
The edit to the memo was made hours before Trump was scheduled to give his State of the Union address to Congress. Many Democrats have said they will bring federal workers who have been fired to the event.
此次对备忘录的修改是在特朗普计划向国会发表国情咨文演讲前几小时做出的。许多民主党人表示，他们将带着被解雇的联邦工作人员出席这一活动。