These indiscriminate firings really need to be stopped. Every single time mass firings have been done, people have been told, “no, not you, come to work on Monday”. It’s ridiculous. Seems like they just BOOM, cut this many jobs from these departments. So they briefly look at what’s being done in those firings and sub-departments, then throw away (because that’s really what it is) talent. And of course it turns out to be the wrong thing to do.
The firings are bad enough. But being fired and then brought back? How many people will choose “to hell with this! I’ll take my chances out in the real world because they *will* fire us next.” We are losing top talent in those departments, and we can guess that this talent will get snapped up by other places, likely at a better pay rate and a whole lot less stress! *ahem* Moving on, from CNN:
Hundreds of staff fired from the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention late Friday have been reinstated, according to the American Federation of Government Employees. After a new round of layoff notices sent late Friday night to around 1,300 workers at the CDC, approximately 700 were reinstated on Saturday, while about 600 remain laid off, according to the union, which represents federal workers. “The employees who received incorrect notifications were never separated from the agency and have all been notified that they are not subject to the reduction in force,” said Andrew Nixon, director of communications for the US Department of Health and Human Services.
Ha. Suuuuure. This has happened before. It’s some serious head games. The top people who are doing the firings just throw out some bullshit, and everyone’s losing here, fired or not fired. It’s certainly possible that some people won’t come back for this. They could come back and polish their resumes to job hunt. We can’t even imagine the stress level. No. We can’t. We can try, but unless you speak with the fired not fired people, we won’t have a better idea of what they’re going through. It’s bad enough from the outside.
Among reinstated employees are staff that publish the agency’s flagship journal, Morbidity and Mortality Weekly Report, according to Dr. Debra Houry, who recently resigned as the agency’s chief medical officer and deputy director for program and science. Houry and other high-level CDC officials resigned in August in protest over the firing of recently confirmed CDC Director Dr. Susan Monarez. Athalia Christie, the incident commander for the measles response, was among hundreds of employees mistakenly fired on Friday. The annual total of measles cases in the US – now up to 1,563 cases since January – is the highest by a significant margin since measles was declared eliminated in America a quarter-century ago.
Measles. Oh, lordy. All because of antivaxxers and raging idiot RFK Jr, so it gives them additional backing from the head of HHS. He does NOT need to be in his position. He made promises, like Trump, that he never intended to keep. He’s a danger to this country! But again, Trump picked him, and he can’t admit he made a mistake and fire him.
Trump needs to fire a bunch of his cabinet, but won’t. So there is additional backing from Trump with his campaign on cutting positions due to “waste, fraud, and abuse”. What a bunch of hooey. We could bet that there is substantially less of that than they show but have to make good on the bullsh!t promises that were said out loud. This is a major mistake. Can it be fixed?
Staff and officers at the CDC’s Epidemic Intelligence Service who were able to check their emails have also received notices that their firings were in error, according to a CDC official with knowledge of the situation who asked not to be named for fear of retaliation. Epidemic Intelligence Service officers, also known as “disease detectives,” are often the first to respond to disease threats when they arise. “We think all staff and all officers” are back, the official said.
“It’s pure managerial incompetence,” said Dr. Nirav Shah, who resigned earlier this year as principal deputy director of the CDC. “I used to think that chaos was the byproduct of this managerial incompetence. Now I start to wonder whether the chaos is the point.” The legality of firing federal workers during a government shutdown is also in question. Shortly after Office of Management and Budget Director Russell Vought posted “The RIFs have begun” on X on Friday AFGE replied “The lawsuit has been filed.” “My message for the CDC staff is the work they do has never been more important,” Shah said.
Indeed. It’s more important now than ever, with everything going on in our country. However, they attempt to conceal these firings, hoping no one will notice. All this fired staff everywhere and a VERY bad jobs market, even though Trump won’t admit it. Hell, make that a very bad *everything* that Trump won’t admit. Damn, people, it’s only been almost 9 months, and the country has dissolved into chaos. We have 3 *years* and a couple of months to go. What next?`
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