Pedro Rios, a U.S. Forest Service firefighter with 13 years of experience, posted on Facebook during the COVID-19 pandemic when he thought his agency wasn’t providing enough safety for families.
The following year, Rios wasn’t rehired by the service. He claimed they wouldn’t rehire him because he was a whistleblower. An administrative judge has agreed, and wants Rios to get $115,000 in back pay, according to NBC News.
“The agency’s evidence in support of its personnel actions is weak, there is strong evidence of retaliatory animus toward the appellant for using social media to bring attention to his concerns, and there is no evidence that the agency treated employees who are not whistleblowers similarly to the appellant,” said Judge Michael S. Shachat of the U.S. Merit Systems Protection Board, which oversees federal employee disputes, in a decision.
According to the decision, Rios was appointed to a Forestry Technician position in Klamath National Forest on May 24, 2020, shortly after the World Health Organization declared COVID-19 a global pandemic in March 2020. It was a temporary position with a limited number of hours.
Before the pandemic was declared, and before he took the position, Rios’ child was hospitalized for symptoms related to a chronic respiratory condition.
In July 2020, Rios’ crew was assigned to contain a wildfire in the Angeles National Forest Los Angeles, Calif. However, the fire was under control by the time they arrived and the crew was directed to return to their regular duty station.
“While the appellant and other crew members raised concerns to their on-site managers that same day about potential exposure to COVID-19 and the possibility of spreading COVID-19 to family members or others upon their return home, they received no clear guidance on what precautions, if any, the agency intended to implement to prevent such potential exposure,” said Shachat’s decision.
After the incident, Rios posted to the “Siskiyou Coronavirus Community Response” Facebook group in the early morning hours of July 8.
“Why bring us back early and expose the public and our own families when we can still be utilized down here with covering for potential future fires (we’ve been dispatched to 3 fires in 4 days) between CNF and ANF,” he said in the post. “We chose this job and know the dangers, bringing us back to Siskiyou exposing an older public population and our own families is absolutely short sighted in our view.”
Rios also posted Staff Officer Mike Appling’s public service work number and email so people who saw the post could send in complaints. He claimed Appling wanted to bring the crew back early.
“The appellant has proved that he made a protected disclosure when he did so,” said Shachat.
Afterwards, staff expressed frustration that Rios went to social media rather than with people up the U.S. Forest Service chain of command.
“But the record reflects that the appellant did in fact attempt to use the chain of command to voice his concerns, and only chose to post his concerns after getting vague and unsatisfactory responses regarding the agency’s plans to quarantine the crews when they returned home,” the judge said.
For the 2021 season Rios was not rehired. In written correspondence, some staff said they thought Rios was a “problem employee,” although the firefighter’s record did not have any evidence to support the claim, according to the judge.
Last June, Rios filed his Individual Right of Action appeal claiming the U.S. Department of Agriculture, U.S. Forest Service, refused to rehire him for the 2021 fire season in retaliation for whistleblowing activity.
“At first I couldn’t believe it,” the firefighter, Pedro Rios, said of Shachat’s decision in his favor, according to NBC News. “It was an overwhelming flow of emotions.”
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