A workers’ board is reinstating – at least temporarily – almost 6,000 fired probationary workers from the Department of Agriculture, according to a newly issued order obtained by CNN.

A U.S. board that reviews the firings of federal employees on Wednesday ordered the U.S. Department of Agriculture to temporarily reinstate thousands of workers who lost their jobs as part of President Donald Trump's layoffs of the federal workforce.

The decision is a blow to the Trump administration’s effort to drastically and quickly shrink the federal bureaucracy.

An independent federal board has directed the U.S. Department of Agriculture to reinstate nearly 6,000 employees fired last month amid the Trump administration's effort to cull the federal workforce.

U.S. government employees who have been fired in the Trump administration's purge of recently hired workers are responding with class action-style complaints claiming that the mass firings are illegal and tens of thousands of people should get their jobs back.

A federal personnel board on Wednesday ordered the U.S. Department of Agriculture to reinstate a fired worker, as well as "numerous" other probationary employees who were fired Feb. 13 and later. The Merit Systems Protection Board issued the ruling at the request of the Office of Special Counsel,

The firings of over 5,000 probationary employees at the U.S. Department of Agriculture may have been unlawful, and the workers should be reinstated for at least the next 45 days, a federal civil service board ruled Wednesday.

The Merit Systems Protection Board significantly broadened a previous decision to restore six federal workers' jobs after Trump illegally terminated them.