[Official] Federal workforce reduction thread

I just don't think this is a situation of some people which extreme solutions but are short sighted stumbling into problems .

I don't think there is a single ounce of sincerity here and it's 100% about private capital owners wanting ownership of government essential services because they have near inelastic demand. And business owners love owning the means of production on goods and services that have inelastic demand. It's the holy grail of most " entrepreneurs"...
Ownership of something that is essential and irreplaceable.

 

I thought your primary concern was national security at large...if a firing was rescinded and that person was put back on, then security wouldn't be compromised as someone considered important to the project is still there.

It's been this administrations MO when it comes to gov't cuts to freeze/make cuts right off the bat then dial it back as needed. Understandably people have reservations about that approach, but if the end result is reduced gov't waste then I am ok with it.

Sometimes people get furloughed then brought back, deferred onboarding, etc. It's not THAT unorthodox of an approach when big sweeping changes are being implemented.

 

It is. My example is directly related to the nuclear weapons program (national security). It's cool that you want to dance around the topic, trust me, I'm not going to judge you if you judge the administration you voted for. Security was compromised, but you know, thankfully someone realized about the **** up, then the firing was rescinded.

Once again, I'm not worried about positions that don't necessarily impact anyone. I still remember in one of my previous government jobs that I use to have to take a CD with burned information to this other individual that would then would coordinate directly with IT to get it put where it needed to go. I went around this individual once thinking it was worthless to have a middle man involved in the process (plus wasting a CD for no good reason), and this individual got wind of it and was absolutely upset that I bypassed the process. So yeah, I can only imagine that there are plenty of jobs that are not necessary within government. Personally, I wish the administration would focus in other areas where cuts would make an actual difference (if they are serious about cuts) and not just tackle the ones that are a drop in the bucket that nobody can really hear.

This isn't the corporate world, it is the government world. If it's some HR person that furloughed but then will be brought back, then who cares? But if we are talking about critical positions, like an ATC or someone that works within nuclear weapons program, then its a bit stupid to treat it like a business.

My hope for you is that you are critical of your administration whenever they deserve it, rather than dancing around trying to make excuses for them.

 

You don't know whether the people let go are critical to whatever national security program they were working on, or whether they were superfluous. If you can't confirm that then your point is wholly invalid.

 

I can use my brain to critically think. I'm sorry that I don't work for the agency to give you the intricate details you are looking for lol. Apparently, someone thought these positions were critical enough that they rescinded their resignations. Your president and his goon (Musk) are individuals that LOVE firing others, so do you really think they would take something back they did if it wasn't a critical position? All I'm asking you is to use your brain. You sure loved doing it when it was a democrat in the white house, why turn off your brain suddenly???

 

You are a circle talker....as are most libs.

 

Okay, so turning off your brain it is. Thanks for the response!

 

No, it's just you are so bad at reading comprehension or are so willfully ignorant I already addressed everything you said (and thwarted it) like 10 posts ago. I try not to play tennis against brick walls. If you want to keep going, re-read my prior posts (carefully this time) and if you still want to argue, just keep reading them again, it will have the same effect.

 

I don’t see you woke clowns in here shed too many tears for all those laid off workers when Biden shuts down that Keystone XL pipeline? How about all those fired workers for refusing to take that poisonous jab? Save your idiotic outrage clowns. Always gaslighting people!

 

How long until they cut back on USPS because these folks don't know how things work? Or have they already done that?

 

https://www.reuters.com/world/us/tr...tal-board-washington-post-reports-2025-02-21/

well that didn't take long. kiss mail-in vote goodbye i guess (if there to be an election in the future)

 

Here's a report about firings at Los Alamos Nuclear Laboratory. You know, the place where they design and build big bombs.

At the agency’s Los Alamos field office alone, there was the site’s emergency preparedness manager, who is responsible for maintaining plans to minimize the effects of a nuclear accident on site and in surrounding areas. There was the radiation protection manager, responsible for minimizing radiation exposure to on-site workers. There was the security manager, the fire protection engineer, and two facility representatives, who are the office’s day-to-day eyes and ears on site manufacturing facilities.

A number of years ago, I helped evaluate a tabletop exercise for LANL. The scenario was a release of tritium gas--in fission bombs, surrounding the core with the unstable tritium gas increases the yield, makes a bigger boom. In the exercise, the entire mesa had to be evacuated in short order. During fires on and around the Lab, firefighters have had to wear dosimeters because of just the background radiation around the place. Over the years, there have been problems because the mesa drains contaminants down into the Rio Grande, which among other things, provides a lot of drinking water to Albuquerque.

And now we are removing a bunch of safety folks at a nuclear laboratory that has been in operation since the 1940s. Jesus.

 

Make love not war

Nuclear disarmament is the way, not stockpiling

Is a liberal mantra, is it not? Shifting away from nuclear weapons is a must

 

Oversight agency finds Trump’s federal worker firings unlawful, asks for some employees to be reinstated

The findings could have sweeping impacts for the tens of thousands of recently dismissed workers.

https://www.govexec.com/workforce/2...ful-asks-some-employees-be-reinstated/403218/

After publication of this story, OSC released a statement confirming its findings and suggesting Dellinger is actively contemplating expanding them to include far more federal workers.

"The special counsel believes other probationary employees are similarly situated to the six workers for whom he currently is seeking relief," OSC said. "Dellinger is considering ways to seek relief for a broader group without the need for individual filings with OSC."

Agencies improperly firing their employees have denied them of pay, benefits, possible accrual of tenure and due process rights, OSC said. Some employees, due to their high performance marks and federal layoff procedures, would not necessarily lose their jobs under a RIF.

Some of the probationary firings more specifically violated rules surrounding those dismissals, OSC said. Agencies must use the “trial period” to earnestly assess employees’ performance.

“This requirement is not a simple bureaucratic technicality—compelling agencies to assess the specific fitness of each employee prior to terminating them ensures that outstanding employees are not arbitrarily lost and that terminations are truly in the best interests of the federal service and consistent with merit system principles,” OSC said.



https://www.usatoday.com/story/news...lls-doge-federal-firings-illegal/80056449007/

A top watchdog in the federal government said that the mass firings of probationary employees appear illegal, and asked a specialized labor board to pause the terminations of six employees in six different federal agencies so the watchdog organization can investigate.

Hampton Dellinger, in a federal whistleblower protection entity called the Office of Special Counsel, made the announcement Monday. Just over a week ago, the probationary employees and their lawyers asked him to go to bat for them before the Merit Systems Protection Board, which protects federal workers against partisan politics and illegal employment practices.

"The language in (the workers') termination notices is quite similar and does not describe any specific issues with any of the (the workers') performance or conduct," says Dellinger's request to reinstate an employee of the Department of Veterans Affairs. "Notably, only three of the notices mention performance or conduct at all as a justification for the termination, and none provide any detail or individualized assessment."

Dellinger wrote in a statement that the terminations appear "contrary to a reasonable reading of the law," particularly the law about reductions in force. Federal law generally requires 60 days' notice for a reduction in force and prohibits probationary employees from being fired for reasons unrelated to performance or conduct.

Federal workers must go through specialized channels when they believe their rights have been violated, and the Office of the Special Counsel and the Merit System Protection Board are two of those key channels.

Probationary employees, those recently hired or promoted, have fewer means of challenging a dismissal and must largely rely on the Special Counsel to back them.

 

These r****ded resistance lawfare antics might feel good in the moment, but they will force SCOTUS' hand.

They will soon rule Trump has unrestricted authority to fire anyone in the executive branch. It's literally the first sentence of Article II

 

I'm under no illusion the SC will suddenly drop the unitary executive bent they've been on, but Article II also has an advice and consent clause immediately followed by one that says Congress "may by Law vest the Appointment of such inferior Officers, as they think proper, in the President alone, in the Courts of Law, or in the Heads of Departments." For most of the last 130 years, this would not be a question--of course Congress can fund specific programs and require the Executive Branch to employ people to do the work. They can also make laws related to the status of those employees. But now?

 

Federal agencies like HHS and USDA reverse some layoffs : NPR

Staffers at some agencies say the notification process has been chaotic, leaving their employment status and teams' futures unclear.

To add to the confusion, some employees have received termination notices only to have their firings reversed within days or even hours.

A number of agencies appear to be trying to reinstate employees they just fired. That's been the case for dozens of workers at agencies including the U.S. Department of Energy, the Department of Health and Human Services and the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA).

"Part of the problem is that a lot of these political appointees don't necessarily know what these programs are or what they're designed to do," Bednar says. "Things break almost immediately when these employees leave, and so you have to call them back."

Another contributing factor is likely political pressure from Congress, Bednar says, even if it's happening behind closed doors. The majority of the federal workforce is located outside of Washington, D.C., and he's seen that many lawmakers are concerned about their constituents.

But even if agencies are able to reinstate some laid-off employees, they're not all guaranteed to come back. Bednar says the haphazard layoffs process has done "damage to the reputation of the federal government as an employer" that might leave longtime civil servants looking to the private sector instead.

"You don't feel comfortable or secure in your position if you're laid off one day and then told, 'Oh, never mind, we figured out you're actually an important part of our team,' " he adds. "And you're left wondering, 'Well, at what point will you decide that I'm no longer important?' "

He says it's also jarring for the broader public to watch this back and forth happen, especially since so many people don't have a nuanced understanding of how federal agencies work in the first place. The patchwork of terminations and reversals further "suggests something about mismanagement of government," he adds.

Hundreds of Indian Health Service workers got their jobs back
Approximately 950 Indian Health Service (IHS) employees were told they would receive layoff notices last Friday, IHS Public Affairs Director Nicole Adams told NPR.

But their jobs were quickly saved after newly-confirmed Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. rescinded the layoffs via phone calls later that day, Adams confirmed.

Whiplash for nuclear weapons workers

Last week wrought days of chaos at the National Nuclear Security Administration (NNSA), a civilian agency within the Department of Energy that oversees the U.S. nuclear weapons stockpile.

After being told they would not get an exemption for national security purposes, officials were given hours to fire more than 100 employees. Workers were abruptly shut out of their government email accounts and told to clear out their desks on the spot, as NPR has reported.

NPR spoke to several employees who were involved in the NNSA terminations and rehirings. They asked to remain anonymous because they currently serve in the federal government and are not authorized to speak to the press.

Those who were fired spent Friday worrying about what to do next. "That mental game was horrible," says one NNSA employee who received a termination notice.

On Capitol Hill, lawmakers were incensed about the firings, given the sensitive nature of the agency's work, which includes making safety and security upgrades to nuclear warheads, overseeing emergency response plans at nuclear storage facilities and trying to prevent terrorists from acquiring weapons-grade plutonium and uranium.

"When we lose people and people are on edge, they get disheartened," the fired and rehired employee told NPR, predicting that the work of the nuclear agency is likely to slow as a result.


A hydropower agency rescinds dozens of firings

The Bonneville Power Administration (BPA) — a nonprofit federal power marketing administration within the Department of Energy, headquartered in Portland, Oregon — is also reversing some job cuts.

Oregon Public Broadcasting reported that the BPA is bringing back 30 employees it fired last week, citing multiple sources familiar with the agency's operations. They asked not to be named out of fear of retaliation from the current administration.

BPA, one of four federal power marketing administrations in the country, distributes hydropower from 31 federal dams and operates 75% of the Northwest's power grid.

Some 130 of BPA's more than 3,000 employees were notified of their dismissal last week as part of the administration's downsizing push.

But 30 probationary workers were later brought back because, according to a senior official at BPA, they did "mission critical work" to manage power across the Pacific Northwest.


USDA moves to bring back its bird flu staff

Days after touting "an aggressive plan to optimize its workforce," the USDA confirmed it is trying to reverse the terminations of an unspecified number of staffers who had been working on the federal government's response to the highly pathogenic avian influenza (HPAI).

"Although several positions supporting HPAI were notified of their terminations over the weekend, we are working to swiftly rectify the situation and rescind those letters," an agency official speaking on the condition of anonymity told NPR on Wednesday.

The widespread H5 bird flu has caused outbreaks in poultry and dairy cows, sending egg prices skyrocketing and infecting more than 60 people in the U.S.


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