With no deal in sight to end the government’s second-longest shutdown, federal workers facing layoffs and furloughs say it’s having unimaginable consequences.
Many furloughed and excluded federal employees received partial pay earlier this month and are set to miss their first full paycheck as early as this week.
Meanwhile, some of the nearly 4,000 federal employees who recently received layoff notices say they are stretched to the limit. Some say they don’t know how they will continue to pay for housing or essential medical procedures if they lose their health insurance.
A federal judge temporarily blocked the Trump administration from implementing many of these RIFs. But many federal employees who have already received layoff notices say they are afraid of what happens next.
In recent court filings, several laid-off federal employees have described the detrimental impact these layoffs have had on their lives. A federal employee told the court she received her FIR notice while she was on maternity leave. Others said they received RIF notices earlier this year, which were rescinded, and have now received a second RIF notice this month.
Dorothy Roper, an IT specialist at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, told the court Wednesday that she received an RIF notice on Oct. 10 — her second this year.
“This is not the first time I have received a notice from the RIF,” Roper wrote.
Roper said his entire team received RIF notices in April, when the Department of Health and Human Services laid off more than 10,000 employees. Roper said his team was eventually reinstated.
“Now, six months later, the agency has again issued an RIF for my position,” Roper wrote. “This RIF and the uncertainty of whether I have a job is causing me profound financial and emotional distress. »
Mayra Medrano, a program analyst at the Department of Commerce’s Minority Business Development Agency, also received her second RIF notice this year.
Medrano told the court she received her first FIR notice while in hospital, to protect herself from a “stress-induced” seizure, but was later reinstated. This time, she doesn’t really know what to expect.
“I am reliving the nightmare of the first RIF,” she writes.
LaMarla Stevens, a management analyst at the Department of Housing and Urban Development’s Office of Housing Counseling, said she received a RIF notice while she was still on maternity leave.
“I expected to have several more months of maternity leave to focus on my four-month-old son. Because of the RIF, I do not know if I will receive back pay for the remainder of my paid maternity leave,” Stevens wrote.
“Even if I manage to find a job, going back to work means incurring months of child care costs that I hadn’t anticipated and don’t know if I’ll be able to afford,” she added.
Christine Grassman, a vocational programs specialist in the Department of Education’s Office of Special Education and Rehabilitative Services, told the court she was also concerned about being able to continue paying her mortgage after receiving a FIR notice this month.
Grassman is blind and her husband, also blind, is not currently working. At 56, Grassman said she plans to continue working for the federal government until she reaches retirement age.
“The idea of losing my job is both terrifying and devastating. I worked very hard to obtain gainful employment as a person with a disability and intended to continue working in government until I retired,” she wrote.
Daniel Ronneburg, president of AFSCME Local 1653, which represents Federal Aviation Administration employees, said he received a life-saving kidney transplant just before the government shutdown. Now on leave, Ronneburg said he fears losing his health coverage if he receives a layoff notice.
“If I lose my job and health care coverage due to a RIF during the ongoing shutdown, I will not be able to afford post-operative treatment for my kidney transplant which I could never pay for without help from health insurance,” Ronneburg wrote.
The judge’s temporary restraining order blocking the layoffs currently covers five employee unions. The plaintiffs seek to add three more unions: the National Treasury Employees Union, the American Federation of Teachers and the International Federation of Professional and Technical Engineers.
Other federal employees said RIFs and furloughs make it harder for employees still on the job to keep up with the workload. At a hearing called by House Democrats, Paul Osadebe, a HUD civil rights attorney who is currently on administrative leave and awaiting termination, said the department had fired “almost all” investigators across the country who investigate whether violations of the Fair Housing Act had received termination notices.
“You can’t tell me you’re going to enforce people’s civil rights when it comes to housing. Meanwhile, no one can investigate a case to determine if someone’s rights were violated. It just doesn’t pass any smell test,” Osadebe said.
“Even before we were furloughed, our ability to do our jobs was being dismantled, piece by piece and worker by worker,” he added.
James Jones, an off-duty National Park Service maintenance mechanic at the Blue Ridge Parkway in North Carolina, said many national parks remain open, but few employees remain on the job to provide maintenance.
“Visitors are pouring in right now by the thousands,” Jones said. It’s our busiest time of year, and there is virtually no one to police the parks and keep people safe – just limited law enforcement staff.
Rob Shriver, former acting director of the Office of Personnel Management, now XXX at Democracy Forward, said these mass layoffs are scaring the next generation of federal employees.
“The government was recruiting young people, recruiting tech talent, recruiting AI talent. These were, for the most part, probationary employees at the beginning of the Trump administration, and they were summarily terminated without cause, simply because the Trump administration thought they could do it,” Shriver said. “What message does this send to young people, to tech talent, to the greatest AI minds in the country? We’re telling you, on the one hand, we want you to come work for us, and on the other hand, we’re letting you go for no good reason.”
Republican lawmakers told reporters Wednesday that the extended shutdown is pushing some agencies to their limits when it comes to providing services and granting benefits to the public.
Rep. Bruce Westerman (R-Ark.) said national parks remain open thanks to state funds, but warned, “this cannot continue indefinitely, despite all the extraordinary efforts.”
“At some point, without funding, public lands will no longer be accessible to the public. The longer this unnecessary closure continues, the more we will begin to see negative consequences. Without regular staffing, waste will accumulate and park ecosystems will be affected,” Westerman said.
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