Federal health workers brace for layoffs as White House instructs HHS to rank workers
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Employees at the Department of Health and Human Services are bracing for layoffs across the vast public health agency, as Donald Trump’s administration instructs federal health officials to rank their essential workers and those who are deemed less essential.
Agencies like the Food and Drug Administration and Centers for Disease Control and Prevention could be forced to cut a certain percentage of employees under the directive, gutting critical public health agencies under the sprawling cabinet-level department.
Leaders were also asked to justify why certain employees should be retained.
A White House spokesperson denied to The Independent that there are any executive orders underway related to HHS, following reports, though it remains unclear what the administration intends to do with the information it collects.
Managers at the CDC were told to rank 10 percent of their probationary staff as mission-critical, 50 percent as important and 40 percent as not mission-critical, according to The Washington Post, citing people familiar with the matter.
Those reports were due Thursday.
More than 2 million government employees have to decide whether to accept the “deferred resignation” offer from the Office of Personnel Management (REUTERS)
Potential cuts to the sprawling health agency — with more than 80,000 employees, expected to be under the direction of conspiracy theorist Robert F. Kennedy Jr., who does not have a medical background or degree — could significantly impact drug research and development and efforts to combat disease outbreaks.
“The president seems at war with public health and science. Which scientists will the president fire, and for what cause?” said Lawrence Gostin, director of the O’Neill Institute for National and Global Health Law at Georgetown.
“Indiscriminate cuts will weaken health protection, from drug safety to fighting epidemics,” he said.
Additional cuts would follow the so-called buyout offers to thousands of federal employees in Trump’s attempt to slash the nation’s federal workforce. A federal judge temporarily blocked the offer on Thursday following a lawsuit arguing that workers were forced into an “arbitrary, unlawful, short-fused ultimatum.”
More than 2 million government employees were facing Friday’s midnight deadline to decide whether to accept the “deferred resignation” offer from the Office of Personnel Management, which offered pay and leave through September 30 with no expectation of work. “You are most welcome to stay at home and relax or to travel to your dream destination. Whatever you would like,” the office website states.
Employees who did not take the offer were not guaranteed they would keep their jobs.
Roughly 60,000 government employees had already accepted the buyout before the judge’s ruling. A deadline was moved to Monday, February 10, though the court could intervene and indefinitely delay.
Thousands of workers at the US Agency for International Development are imminently expected to be fired as the Trump administration — with Elon Musk’s guidance — slashes the global aid organization, with critical public health and relief missions in more than 100 countries.
A memo on the agency’s website earlier this week noted that nearly the entire USAID workforce would be put on “administrative leave” by the end of the week, with only a small number of “designated personnel responsible for mission-critical functions, core leadership and specially designated programs” who would be exempt.
USAID workers abroad, which account for roughly two-thirds of the agency’s staff, will “be offered optional and fully reimbursed return travel to the United States within 30 days,” though “personnel are not required to accept Agency-sponsored travel or to return to the United States within any specific deadline.”
Unions representing USAID workers confirmed to The Independent that the agency’s global workforce could be reduced to fewer than 300 employees. The Trump administration is reportedly backtracking and keeping roughly 600 workers, according to Reuters.
On Thursday night, unions representing USAID workers and civil rights groups sued the Trump administration over the firings, warning that the dramatic and sudden elimination of jobs serving crucial programs in vulnerable areas will fuel a global humanitarian crisis.
This article was originally published by a www.independent.co.uk . Read the Original article here. .