President Joe Biden meets with President-elect Donald Trump in the Oval Office at the White House on Nov. 13. Biden’s administration has taken steps to protect federal jobs, but Trump campaigned on a promise to cut the federal workforce. Photo by Alex Wong/Getty Images
By Kyle Cooper and Mitchell Miller
Thousands of people concerned about their federal government jobs once President-elect Donald Trump returns to the White House participated in a Tele-Town Hall last week to learn more about plans to stop potential cuts to the workforce from happening.
The event Thursday evening, hosted by Rep. Glenn Ivey (D-4th), attracted about 15,000 people, mostly federal workers from the D.C. area who are bracing for possible cuts that Trump has pledged to implement. Those in attendance were able to submit questions and interact with Ivey and union leaders who will look to defend their jobs from elimination.
“No one should expect that on Jan. 20, they’re going to get fired,” said Daniel Horowitz, the deputy legislative director of American Federation of Government Employees, a union for federal workers.
Trump has said he plans to reimplement Schedule F, which reclassify some federal workers to make it easier to fire them without cause. Horowitz said a rule put in place by the Biden Administration would at least slow down any plan for mass-firing of federal workers.
“If you do, as a federal employee, get moved on to, say, schedule F, and you already had tenure protection as a member of the competitive service that would carry over, you would still have that and you could not be arbitrarily removed,” he said.
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Horowitz said the Trump White House will likely seek to have that provision removed, but it will take months for that to happen. Ivey added that while the effort will be different for federal contractors, they should be prepared for a push to eliminate their jobs as well.
Any potential cuts would not likely affect federal retirees, Horowitz said, but they may not be off the hook entirely. Efforts to make cuts across the board may include changing federal retirement programs, which can impact existing benefits for current or future retirees, which will need to be closely monitored over the next 12 months, he said.
It’s also possible that remote work will end and workers will be forced to return to the office. While the union will defend its members’ right to continue teleworking under its current agreements, Horowitz told federal workers at the town hall, “if you get an order to go to the office, go to the office.”
Trump has also appointed Elon Musk and Vivek Ramaswamy to head the Department of Government Efficiency, which isn’t an actual agency but an advisory group tasked to come up with ways to make the government more efficient, potentially through unprecedented cuts to the federal workforce.
Musk and Ramaswamy visited Capitol Hill last week, to meet with lawmakers and discuss how they plan to slash the number of federal workers. Pledges have been made many times over the years to shrink the federal government, and some are skeptical this latest effort will lead to the sweeping changes Musk and Ramaswamy have committed to.
But Ivey said his constituents have taken notice.
“There’s definitely concern,” he told WTOP. “I think a lot of people are worried that they’re going to be pushed out of their positions unfairly.”
But Republican critics of federal spending say much of it is wasted and that there is plenty of room for cuts. They argue that reducing the size of the federal bureaucracy would improve the overall economy.
Ivey said he and other members of the Maryland congressional delegation are working with local members of Congress to stop the cuts, including Reps. Gerry Connolly and Don Beyer of Virginia and D.C. Delegate Eleanor Holmes Norton, all Democrats.
Virginia has more than 140,000 federal workers, and like Maryland and D.C., its economy relies heavily on federal dollars.
“This is critical,” Ivey said Thursday evening. “We’re going to be working together to focus on this.”
– As part of Maryland Matters’ content sharing agreement with WTOP, we feature this article from Kyle Cooper and Mitchell Miller. Click here for the WTOP News website.