It’s Going to Take Years to Train Another Generation of Federal Workers
Well, this seemed particularly well-timed. The world—not to mention Delta flights to Toronto—has turned upside down. From CNN:
An exact number of firings is not yet known, but the head of the Professional Aviation Safety Specialists, AFL-CIO, said that “several hundred” workers started getting firing notices on Friday—and that they could even be barred from FAA facilities Tuesday after the federal holiday. CNN has reached out to the FAA for comment.
One of the many troublesome results of the members of the DOGE body declaring the Red Hour in the bureaucracy is the clear-cutting of probationary workers throughout the executive branch. The probationary workers are easier targets of opportunity, having fewer protections under current regulations. From CBS News:
The decision on probationary workers, who generally have less than a year on the job, came from the Office of Personnel Management, which serves as a human resources department for the federal government. The notification was confirmed by a person familiar with the matter, who spoke on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to discuss it publicly.
Even workers in the personnel office itself were not immune: Dozens of probationary employees at OPM were told on a Thursday afternoon group call that they were being dismissed and then instructed to leave the building within a half-hour, according to another person who likewise spoke on condition of anonymity.
So many of the people being peremptorily—and, in many cases, insultingly—fired are young people still anxious to make careers in public service. Social media is replete these days with victims of the purge who explain that they have lost the jobs they have wanted to have for their entire lives. Among other things, this means that if we ever come out of this excursion into Bedlam, which is no sure thing, it’s going to take years to train another generation of federal workers—years to train new FAA personnel, years to train new personnel for the Forest Services, years to train new meat inspectors, years to train new nuclear inspectors. ProPublica ran a report about the effects of these firings on wildfire safety.
ProPublica spoke to a dozen firefighters and others who assist with the federal wildfire response across the country and across agencies. They described a range of immediate impacts on a workforce that was already stressed by budgetary woes predating the Trump administration. Hiring of some seasonal workers has stalled. Money for partner nonprofits that assist with fuel-reduction projects has been frozen. And crews that had traveled to support prescribed burns in Florida were turned back, while those assisting with wildfire cleanup in California faced confusion over how long they would be allowed to do that work.
A national firefighting leadership training program that McLane was set to attend was canceled on short notice, he said. McLane acknowledged that federal firefighting agencies need a major overhaul, noting that his crew was downsized 30% by pre-Trump administration cuts. But the current confusion could further impact public safety because of the lack of clear leadership and the disrupted preparations for wildfire season. “Wildfire doesn’t care about our bureaucratic calendar,” McLane said.
Regardless of right-wing mythology, these people are not loafers leaning on their shovels eight hours a day. Most of them are trained professionals doing hard, and occasionally dangerous, work. Many of them are underpaid and overworked. And now they’re beset by a plague of undertrained postadolescents in cargo shorts who don’t know what nuclear safety inspectors do, or that the title of a report containing the word gender really was mostly a study of trees in Brazil, or that there aren’t actually 150-year old people collecting Social Security.
“Close enough for government work,” didn’t used to be this much of a joke.
