The Ministry of Education employee was attending the funeral this week when I received the call: it was placed on an administrative leave because it works in projects linking black students, among other matters, with federal government programs.
One of the ancient warriors disabled in the Ministry of Affairs of the Old Warriors grew when he heard about the abolition of remote work options, not sure whether this means the end of his job to take care of his soldiers.
The Federal Trade Committee employee was so concerned that he told family members not to speak of politics on uneven lines. Through government agencies, workers are looking for each other nervously, and they are wondering whether the colleague will inform them, accusing them of resisting the transfer of the new administration to end some programs.
President Trump’s rapid batch to reform the federal bureaucracy in his early days in his position with a mixture of fear, anger and confusion throughout the workforce.
Dozens of employees throughout the government, many of whom spoke on the condition that his identity is not disclosed due to fears of revenge, agencies practiced by uncertainty about how new policies and workers who are trying to fiercely try to evaluate the influence on their careers and their families. As the largest employer in the country, the federal government turmoil can hesitate to societies throughout the country.
Starting from the opening day, orders and notes fell one by one, many of which are made in a sharp tone for the campaign’s discourse: closing the “radical and waste” diversity programs in federal agencies; Installing the protection of the civil service from a share of the federal workforce; The end of work from a distance, which, which claimed one of the administrative notes, left the buildings of the federal offices “often empty” and made the center of Washington “a national embarrassment”.
All new employment was frozen, job offers were canceled, scientific meetings were canceled and federal health officials were temporary temporary I was prevented from communicating With the audience, a guidance that some understand is so widely understood that it extended to providing external purchase orders to the laboratory supplies.
For more than two million federal workers, nearly four fifths who live outside the Washington region, change is inevitable whenever it takes over a new administration. But a few of them expected to come so quickly and scale.
“It has been raised in the most brutal and shocking way to imagine,” said Max Stir, head of public service partnership, a non -profit organization that promotes excellence and best practices in the federal government. Mr. Stir said he had deep concerns about the consequences of Mr. Trump’s rapid changes to the country’s ability to face a set of threats, from terrorism to epidemics.
He said that ambition to change things is reasonable. But “the speed is unnecessary and destroyed.”
Federal employees looked at the guidance supervisors, but they said they had nothing often, as they tried to explain brief orders and notes with some details. For example, the return note to the office said that employees who suffer from a disability can be exempted, but it is not clear the type of disability that may be eligible. Some managers said they did not know anything that exceeded what was in the news. In addition to panic, the president’s statements were from Proposal On Friday, he may consider closing the Federal Emergency Management Agency, which employs 20,000 workers throughout the country.
A spokesman for the Personnel Management Office defended the procedures in a statement, describing them, “exciting steps to build a federal working force based on merit, excellence and achievement, so that we can obtain a government that serve the public effectively and efficiently.”
“We have already provided millions of dollars in hard -to -self -acquired taxpayers, which are no longer addressed to the Deia programs, which were wasted millions of dollars in hard -to -self -acquired taxpayers against federal workers,” the statement said.
Donald F. said. Kittel, Fakhri Professor at the University of Maryland studies the civil service, that there was a large -scale consensus among experts that the civil service needed changes.
“It is extremely difficult to use it, it is very difficult to shoot, and there is a great match between the civil service system and the government’s ability to deal with the challenges of the twenty -first century,” said Dr. Kittel.
But he said that many of the Trump administration’s proposed changes will be inverse. “They focus more on changing the balance of power more than they focus on improving the government’s results,” he said.
Inside the federal offices, the mood was tense and expected. One of the employees at the Ministry of Internal Security said that the employees were dangerous to expel them at any moment. One of the workers said that in the Trade Department, the employees felt horror when a meeting was called.
Some federal employees said that isolation was deepened, the fact that most of their American colleagues See the federal government As swelling and ineffective. Some have said that the reform, if it is well studied, will be in good health and welcome. But many indicated that they accepted major wages to work for the government because they believe in public service – the issuance of social security checks, the maintenance of air travel safely and the inspection of foods, among other roles.
“The truth is that the American economy needs a work and agency,” said Colin Samali, a geologist in the US Army’s weapon in the US Army and President of the International Vocational Engineers and Technicians. “We maintain construction projects, ports and waterways open, work of energy networks, protect societies from natural disasters and help societies affected by recovery. Harming our mission hurts the public.”
The commitment to anxiety was a guidance from the employee management office who direct the agency’s heads to deliver by January 24 the names of those who were still in the test period, and they are usually within two or two years of their employment.
The guidance indicated that these employees can be terminated during that period without provoking the appeal rights, “and that managers must determine whether they should be kept, according to a copy obtained by the New York Times.
Jacqueline Simon, the The Director of Policy of the American Union of Government Persons, which includes about 300,000 active members in dozens of agencies, said that attempts to end the federal employees who are still in their test periods may have harmful effects on government services.
For example, she said that food safety and inspection service, who work in meat and poultry factories to prevent sick animals and other pollutants from entering food supplies, and often leave within a year because the job is very exhausted.
Ms. Simon said: “It is not a job that has been long ago,” describing the “dirty and dangerous” work. She added that the Trump administration will remove everyone in the service who were still under observation, there will be a severe shortage of inspectors in meat treatment factories.
A federal enforcement agency said he is working in a team of more than ten lawyers, more than half of them are still in the test period. The lawyer said that if the team lost all its members under observation, it will be “catastrophic” of the team’s ability to assume the responsibilities of law enforcement.
One of the most complete changes made by Mr. Trump in his first week was the matter of federal workers to return to the office full time by next month, as he ended years of a flexible remote communication policy, which in many offices belongs to the epidemic. For some who want to continue working for the government, this may mean selling homes, changing children’s schools and moving to hundreds of miles within weeks. New mothers discuss whether they will be able to return from maternity leave, and forced husbands to choose who gets their current jobs.
Many offices currently do not have enough space for all employees to return. This, some claim, is the basic point. Shortly after the November elections, Elon Musk and Vivek Ramaswamy, the men used by Mr. Trump to reshape the government, books In the Wall Street Journal: “The demand of federal employees to come to the office five days a week will lead to a wave of voluntary termination that we welcome.”
The actor said. Ivy from Maryland, a democratic is home to tens of thousands of federal workers: “I think we know where he seems to be trying to go, which is to force people to quit smoking.” “They will try to force many federal employees to get out of work, then replace them with political loyalists.”
Administration efforts are already The court is appealed by unions and other groups, which are arguing, among other things, that raising the protection of civil service is inconsistent with the laws that govern federal workers.
Among the first to feel the direct influence of the new president’s policies, employees were working on the diversity of diversity, stock and integration initiatives. Mr. Trump ordered the immediate closure of all these offices, with their employees placed on an administrative vacation by Wednesday at 5 pm, and the agencies ordered plans to develop them by January 31. Management also threatening Employees have “opposite consequences” if they fail to report colleagues who challenge requests within 10 days, and prepare a special email account for such reports.
The employee of the Ministry of Education, who was placed on vacation while she was at a funeral, said that she worked in a famous program that links students with scholarships and industry leaders, and helped blacks to benefit from government programs that they often did not know. in Various contactsThe Trump administration described such efforts “harmful” and “Maliah”.
She said: “I think if this is harmful, I am proud to provide this damage – enabling society to be better because we are wonderful.” “We don’t just reach the wealth between the generations and favoritism they have, so we have to teach people how to achieve this for themselves.”
In the workforce with an area of about 20 percent of the lions, many employees said that there may be another result of the movements: making the federal government more white and less diverse.
By the end of the week, some bored employees said they do not know the time you can stick to. He described many conditions as reminiscent of the McCarthy era, and they were desperate to find out how quickly their office leaders surrender.
In the Ministry of Labor, the employees have seen a recently appointed colleague as a civil service because she was a previous political appointment. One of the employees said that her manager is asking her to publish the website not only from the phrase “diversity, fairness and integration”, as required by the executive order, but also from references to “disadvantaged societies” and “marginalized”. After that, she said, she went to a wardrobe, and she called her mother and cried.
On Tuesday morning, Moria Li, an analyst in NASA, joined a virtual municipal hall to find out what all requests mean for her small team, which monitors and audits projects in the space program. She said that the supervisors of the Acting, the people who had known them for years, have made it clear to everyone that they did not tend to show flexibility.
The weekly chain of speakers that were organized within the framework of the diversity program, which brought deaf people, have been brought in the old combat warriors and others to exchange their experiences. Her ability to live in Nashville and go twice a month to an office two hours away in Hunsfil, Alaa.
After the meeting, she and her colleagues returned to their jobs. She said she shook, but they are not afraid. She said: “The people who act more in their fear are the ones who are in power.”
But the change in work away, along with other directives, was too much for her. Thus, Mrs. Lee sent her notice: After nearly six years of starting work in the federal government, she was resigning.
Kate Kellyand Hamed Alilaziz and Sherrill Jay Stolberg It contributed to the reports from Washington.
