Where are you getting the idea that the email is related at all? For government offices were I know workers, firing is based on 100% seniority, completely independent of performance or email responses.
> For government offices were I know workers, firing is based on 100% seniority, completely independent of performance or email responses.
Reductions in force due to mission/budget/etc. changes, etc., which are based on seniority, not firings, which are (where civil service protections apply) exclusively for documented misconduct or incompetence and have due process protections.
It’s true that private industry (at least outside of unionized workplaces) leverage at-will employment to blur the line between mission/budget-based staffing reductions and for-cause firings, but the civil service isn’t at will and the line is a sharp legal distinction.
To be legal, without individual cause, they would have to, but they don't appear to have followed the law for either seniority-based reductions or for-cause firings (and in at least some cases there appear to have been directives given to falsely characterize broad policy-focus based dismissals as for-cause firings.)
