Week 19 saw We the People kicking Elon Musk out of Washington, Trump shutting down Voice of America, and the State Department seeking an even deeper staffing cut.
Elon Musk, President Trump’s top advisor and head of the notorious and ironically named Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE), announced that his “scheduled time” as a special government employee for the Trump administration has come to an end. Over the past few months, Musk faced a domestic and international backlash due to his far-right view and DOGE’s sweeping federal job cuts. Tesla sales in Europe plunged 50% last month while Tesla dealerships have been flooded with protesters who want him out of the government.
DOGE has caused so much chaos and damage to the work of the government and the American people it serves. It has been inefficient, ineffective, and plain clueless.
The Social Security Administration (SSA), for example, has lost nearly 2,000 employees through its buyout and early retirement programs. About 80% of these employees worked in the field offices directly serving the American people. And so SSA had to send high-ranking officials and lawyers from its headquarters in Baltimore to regional offices to do the work of these claims processors. The result was a disaster as they didn’t know how to do the job, resulting in delays in claims processing and longer wait times for retirees and people with disabilities. Tens of thousands of people will die waiting for their benefits to be approved. The employees who left took with them years of knowledge and expertise that took years to master.
The nightmare is not ending soon as DOGE’s misguided cost cutting measures are still in effect, and SSA has plans to shed a total of 7,000 employees, claiming without evidence that the agency is bloated.
At the National Weather Service (NWS), DOGE cuts right before the hurricane season have so far left dozens of people dead as more than 500 workers were either fired or took a buyout, leaving the agency severely short-staffed and hurting its ability to track the storms and warn the public.
DOGE cuts at NWS will result in the deaths and injuries of Americans. There is also concern that there may not be enough doctors to treat people as many have already fled the Trump regime to Canada.
But as Minnesota Governor Tim Walz pointed out, Musk did what he said he’d do – “finally rooting waste and abuse” by leaving the administration.
Musk is gone, but his DOGE is still here and looking for more ways to wreak havoc on the federal government and employees.
Meanwhile, correctional officers who voted for Trump now feel betrayed as he tore up their union contracts.
Here’s a quick recap of Trump’s attacks on America in his 19th week in office, how these actions hurt federal workers and the American people they serve, and how We the People fight back:
June 2: A judge granted a preliminary injunction, ruling that President Trump cannot unilaterally terminate AFGE’s negotiated union contract with the Transportation Security Administration (TSA) covering about 47,000 Transportation Security Officers (TSOs).
May 30: In a major victory for federal employees and AFGE, the appeals court kept in place a lower’s court decision to pause the Trump administration’s mass layoffs of federal workers at 22 agencies until the case is resolved. The Trump administration has asked the Supreme Court to intervene.
May 29: Trump’s State Department is seeking an even deeper staffing cut than previously floated. Now it wants to reduce the domestic workforce by 18%.
May 28: Trump is shutting down Voice of America. The agency is reportedly sending notices to the remaining 800 employees after the appeals court declined to block the administration’s efforts. AFGE Local 1812 has been trying to demand to bargain. The local on March 28 sent a demand to bargain, initial proposals, proposed ground rules and request for information to the agency. As of May 30, the agency has made no effort to respond and begin the process of bargaining, and employees have not received RIF notices.
VOA was founded in 1942 to combat Nazi propaganda with accurate news and information and played a crucial role in curbing the spread of communism during the Cold War. It provides news, information, and cultural programming to a weekly global audience of more than 354 million in nearly 50 languages through radio, television, social media, and the Internet.
May 28: Election season has begun, and federal agencies have started implementing Trump’s executive order issued on his first day in office prohibiting federal workers from using paid administrative leave to vote. Trump’s EO repealed Biden’s EO that allowed employees to use paid administrative leave for voting.
May 28: A judge denied a motion to dismiss a lawsuit challenging Elon Musk and DOGE’s illegal authority to carry out mass firings, access government data, and terminate contracts without congressional approval. The lawsuit was brought by state attorneys general.
May 28: The Trump administration fired a DOGE software engineer after he publicly discussed his work at the Department of Veterans Affairs (VA) where he said everything was actually fine.
“But honestly, it’s kind of fine—because the government works. It’s not as inefficient as I was expecting, to be honest. I was hoping for more easy wins,” he told Fast Company.
May 28: Trump’s Department of Health and Human Services announced it’s cancelling a contract with Moderna to develop a vaccine to protect people against bird flu viruses, including the H5N1 strain that’s been spreading among dairy cows.
May 23: A Merit Systems Protection Board (MSPB) judge ruled that fired probationary employees at the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) can pursue their reinstatement as a class alleging their dismissals were unlawful. Unless they opt out by filing an individual appeal by June 22, hundreds of these wrongfully fired probies will become part of the class action lawsuit. This was the first ruling of similar challenges filed by a coalition of law firms on behalf of employees at 20 agencies.
The Department of Veterans Affairs (VA) has officially walked back its plan to lay off more than 80,000 employees as part of the Elon Musk-led “Department of Government Efficiency” (DOGE) initiative.
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In a significant decision impacting the federal workforce, the Supreme Court lifted lower-court injunctions, enabling the current administration to proceed with its controversial plans for mass layoffs and restructuring of federal agencies.
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In a late-breaking development, the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals has granted a temporary administrative stay of the preliminary injunction blocking enforcement of Executive Order 14251.
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