Feb.14

electoral-vote.com

Dem 47

   

GOP 53

Federal Workforce: A Lot of People Will Soon Be Office Packers

When it comes to federal employees and their job security, there have been three major developments in the past 24 hours or so:

1. District Judge George O'Toole (a Bill Clinton appointee) dissolved his order placing a hold on the "buyout plan" for federal workers concocted by Co-Presidents Elon Musk and Donald Trump.
   
   
2. About an hour later, the Trump administration announced that it had fallen well short of its "voluntary" workforce reduction goals, with only 77,000 federal workers taking the buyout. The Co-Presidents had hoped for at least double that.
   
   
3. About two hours later, one of the DOGEys sent an e-mail to all federal employees advising that the buyout offer was no longer on the table: This was both petty and foolish. There was some number of federal workers that did not want to resign while the freeze was in place (for fear of putting a target on their backs), but who planned to resign if the judge ruled as he did. If Musk and his people had waited until the end of the week, they would have gotten that 77,000 up a bit, and maybe more than a bit.

While this drama was unfolding, at least seven executive agencies commenced mass firings. The exact number of people who are to be terminated is not known, but is certainly in the thousands, and will likely reach the tens of thousands.

This is obviously very shabby treatment of folks who have given themselves over to public service and who, on the whole, do very good work for not-so-great pay. If cutting the federal workforce was really that important, well, about 5% of people quit or retire each year. So, if the administration just left those jobs open, it would have achieved a fairly smooth 20% reduction (and maybe more, as more and more people ended up overworked by having to take on additional duties). Instead, the Co-Presidents just had to deploy their sledgehammer approach. Is that because of the Silicon Valley mantra to "break things"? Or is it because federal workers leaving their jobs in 2027 does not help to undermine investigations against, say, Tesla that are happening right now? We report, you decide.

Needless to say, this story is not over yet. O'Toole's ruling was based on something of a technicality; federal workers' contracts say they have to exhaust all administrative remedies first, and THEN they can go to court. So, maybe they will begin pursuing administrative remedies (which, if there are 40,000 or so cases, will really gum up the works). Or, the federal government employees' unions may well appeal O'Toole's ruling. They had not made a decision as of Thursday evening.

Musk and Trump also know that, at the moment, they are targeting the low-hanging fruit. They've excised the 77,000 people who were willing to go voluntarily, while the ongoing terminations are focused on probationary employees who have relatively few protections when it comes to job security. If the Co-Presidents want to make further reductions in the federal workforce, well, it gets a lot harder from here. (Z)