Trump’s Moves to Upend Federal Bureaucracy Touch Off Fear and Confusion

This week, an employee of the educational department was attending a funeral when he received a phone call. She was on a management leave, especially because she was working on a project to link black students to the federal government program.

A veteran with disabilities hired in the veteran sector became emotional when asked about the withdrawal of telework options.

The Federal Trade Commission’s employees were very worried, so he told his family not to talk about politics on an united line. In the whole government agency, the workers focused on each other’s nervousness, wondering if their colleagues would report them, and accused them of resisting the new administration to end certain programs.

The rapid promotion of overhauling the federal bureaucracy in the first few days of President Trump is full of fear, anger, and confusion in the whole labor force.

Dozens of government employees of the government that many people have spoken under anonymous conditions for retaliation concerns are not about how to desperately implement new policies and workers trying to evaluate the impact on their careers and their families. I explained the institution that grasped the certainty. As one of the largest employers in Japan, the Changes in the Federal Government could react in communities nationwide.

Orders and memos collapsed one after another from the day of the inauguration ceremony. Many were made in a typical tone of the campaign speech. The protection of civil servants from the share of federal labor. At the end of the remote work asserted by one management memo, the federal government building was “almost empty” and the Washington downtown was “the embarrassment of the people.”

All new employments were frozen, recruitment was canceled, scientific meetings were canceled, and federal health authorities were temporarily banned from communicating with the general public.

For more than 2 million federal workers living outside the Washington region, it is inevitable every time a new administration has taken over. However, few people expected to come at this speed and scale.

“They are covered in the most brutal and traumatic way they can imagine,” said Max Steer, the president of a partnership of public service, a non -profit organization that works to promote the federal government’s outstandingness and best practices. I mentioned. Steia said that Trump has a deep concern about Trump’s prompt changes in the ability to face various threats, from terrorism to pandemic.

He said that the ambition of changing things was reasonable. But he added, “The speed is unnecessary and destructive.”

The federal government employees were asking the supervisor for guidance, but they often tried to interpret simple orders and memos, so they often gave anything. For example, the return memo to the office stated that employees with disabilities could be exempted, but it was unknown what kind of obstacle was qualified. Some managers said they didn’t know anything other than the news. In addition to the panic, the President’s remarks suggested on Friday that it might consider closing the Federal Emergency Administration Bureau, which employs 20,000 workers nationwide.

Spokesman of the Human Resources Management Bureau defended his actions in a statement and said, “Because it is an exciting step to build federal labor based on achievements, outstanding, and achievement, the government is effective and efficiently useful. You can have. “

“We have already gained the dollar of taxpayers who have already struggled to make a million people, and have already earned the dollar who has not been able to point to the DEIA program discriminated against the federal workers. We are saving, and the statement mentions diversity, fairness, package, and accessibility initiatives.

Donald F. Kettle, an emeritus professor at the University of Maryland, who is studying public servants, has said that there is a wide range of consensus among experts that civil servants need change.

“It’s too difficult to hire, it’s too difficult to fire, and there are too few matches between the public servant systems and the government needed to deal with the 21st century issues,” said Dr. Kettle. I said.

However, he stated that many of the Trump administration’s proposed changes would be counterproductive. “They focus on changing the balance of power rather than improving government results,” he said.

The inside of the federal government is nervous and expected. One employee of the Ministry of Land Security said that there was a risk that the staff would be fired at any time. According to the Ministry of Commerce, one worker said that each time a meeting was called, the employees were scared.

The isolation has deepened, and most of the federal employees are their fellow Americans. See the federal government It is enlarged and inefficient. Some people said that reforms would be welcomed if they were well thoughtful. However, many have pointed out that they believed in public services and have significantly reduced wages to work for the government. They issue social security checks, keep air travel safely, and test foods.

“In reality, the US economy needs a job of my agency,” said Colin Smy, a geologist of the U.S. Army Engineers and the president of his local international technology engineer. I did it. “We continue to build a construction project, open the port and waterways, support the community from natural disasters and support the recovery of the affected community. To hurt our mission. It will hurt the masses.

The worsening of anxiety is a command from the Human Resources Management Bureau, and is instructed by January 24 to take over the name of a person who was in the probation period within one or two years from employment.

According to a copy acquired by the New York Times, such an employee states that “it can be terminated during that period without causing appeal rights”, and the manager needs to decide whether to hold them. Was stated.

Jacqueline Simon, The Policy Director of the U.S. Government Federation has about 300,000 active members in dozens of institutions, and attempts to end the federal employee during the trial period are harmful to government services. He stated that it could have any effect.

For example, she works in meat and chicken plants and works to prevent sick animals and other pollutants from entering food supply. , He said that he would leave within a year.

“It’s not your long -lasting job,” said Simon. She added that if the Trump administration eliminated all the services that are still in the most of the service, she would have a strict shortage of inspectors at a meat processing plant.

A federal lawyer said he was working in more than 12 lawyers, and more than half of them are still in the career observation period. If the team still loses all members during the probation, the lawyer stated that the team liable for the law enforcement agency is “devastating.”

One of Trump’s most drastic changes in the first week was to return the federal workers to the office in full -time by the second half of next month. For those who want to continue working for the government, this may mean selling a house in a few weeks, changing children’s school, and moving hundreds of miles. The new mother is discussing whether it can return from maternity leave, and the couple has to choose who can maintain their current job.

Many offices are currently not enough space for all employees to return. Some claim that this is a whole point. Soon after the November election, Eron Mask and Vivec Ramas Wamy were beaten by Trump to rebuild the government. I wrote In the Wall Street Journal, “If an employee of the federal government is required to come to the office 5 days a week, the welcome discharge will be waves.”

“I think he knows where he is going to go. That is to force people,” said Glen F. Ivy, Maryland, the home of tens of thousands of federal workers. I said. “They try to drive many federal government employees out of their work and replace them with political loyalty.”

The administration’s efforts have already been challenged in court by unions and other groups, especially that the protection of public servants violates the law that governs the federal workers.

One of the first people who felt the direct impact of the president’s new policy was diversity, fairness, comprehensive initiatives, and employees working on programming. Mr. Trump ordered all of these offices immediately to close, and were ordered to make a plan to fire them on Wednesday at 5:00 pm on Wednesday. If you can’t report to your colleagues that are contrary to your order within 10 days, set a special email account for such reports.

Employees in the education department who were taken during the funeral said that they were working on praised programs linking students to scholarships and industry leaders, and utilized government programs that do not know that blacks exist. I helped. in Various communicationThe Trump administration calls such efforts “harm” and “wasteful”.

“If it was harmful, I am proud to provide the harm. We will be better because we are wonderful,” she said. “We don’t have access to the wealth and nepothism of the generation we have, so we need to teach people how to make it for themselves.”

He stated that many employees could have another result of movement in a labor force, which is nearly 20 % black. The federal government is more white and does not diversify.

By the end of the week, some employees were tired of not knowing how long they could last. Many people were discouraged to explain the conditions reminiscent of the McCar Sea era and see how quickly their office leaders were silent.

In the Ministry of Labor, the staff recently saw a colleague who was recently hired in the position of a civil servant because she was a former political appointment. One employee scrubs the website not only for the word “diversity, fairness, inclusion”, but also for not only services “and” alienated communities “. He said he requested it. Later, she said, she entered the closet and was called her mother and cried.

On Tuesday morning, MORIAH Lee, an analyst of NASA, learned what all small teams of small teams who participated in the virtual city hall to monitor and audit projects in space programs mean. She said to everyone that the acting supervisor of the people who had been personally knew for years had not tended to show flexibility.

The weekly speaker series, which was organized under the Diversity Program, shared experience with people with hearing impaired and veterans. Living in Nashville, twice a month, has no ability to go to Hanzville, Alabama, two hours away.

After the meeting, her and her colleagues returned to their work. She said that they were rattling, but not afraid. “The most act of the fear is the authority,” she said.

However, the change to a remote work combined with other orders was too much for her. Lee sent her notification: almost six years after she started working in the federal government, she resigned.

Kate Kelly,, Hamed Areaizzz and Sheryl Gay Strurberg Contributed from Washington’s report.