A Weekly Update to President Trump’s Anti-Labor Activity
August 27
Last week, the Center for Disease Control (CDC) laid off roughly 600 employees according to a statement given by an American Federation of Government Employees (AFGE) spokesperson to The Hill. This decision by the CDC resulted from Trump’s Department of Government Efficiency executive order, which has continued to wreak havoc on the federal workforce, while cutting working people off from the vital services that federal workers provide.
The decision comes just after the fatal shooting that took place at the CDC’s offices in Atlanta, and will reduce staffing numbers in the the Division of Violence Prevention, the Office of Financial Resources, the offices of the chief information and chief operating officers, among others.
“When we face that next public health crisis, we do so with a decimated and demoralized workforce,” AFGE said in a statement. “HHS [Department of Health and Human Services] has shown that it does not have the organizational or operational capacity to take over the support functions that the agency had before these firings. This reduction in force was operationally a mess. They have shown they are in no way prepared to support the CDC when America needs it most.”
Thousands of Employees at the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services Will Lose their Collective Bargaining Rights
The U.S. Department of Health and Human Services will strip thousands of federal health agency employees of their collective bargaining rights, as reported by AP News. The department will end their recognition of unions at the CDC, Food and Drug Administration, the National Institutes of Health, the Administration for Strategic Preparedness and Response, and at the Office of Refugee Resettlement within the Administration for Children and Families.
“This administration’s illegal and immoral assault on federal workers and their labor unions is punishing hundreds of thousands of dedicated public servants who serve our veterans, ensure the safety of the food we eat and the air we breathe, and now those who protect our public health,” AFGE National President Everett Kelley said. “Tearing up our contracts is a disservice to every American who benefits from the programs and services our members deliver. But let me be clear: our union isn’t going anywhere.”
In May, an appeals court said the administration could continue to carry out Trump’s executive order aimed at ending collective bargaining rights for hundreds of thousands of federal employees. So far, this executive order has devasted workers at the Department of Veterans Affairs and the Environmental Protection Agency.
DOGE Compromised the Personal Data of Millions of Americans
The ill-advised actions by the Department of Government Efficiency could have caused the personal data of hundreds of millions of working people to be at risk of being leaked or hacked, according to a whistle-blower complaint filed by the Social Security Administration’s chief data officer, as reported by NPR.
In June, after accessing a copy of a crucial Social Security database, DOGE employees uploaded the data to an unsecure cloud server. The database contained records of all Social Security numbers issued by the federal government, individuals’ full names, addresses and birth dates, as well as other information that could be used for identity theft.
According to the whistleblower, Charles Borges, DOGE members copied the data to an internal agency server that only DOGE could access, and bypassed the protocol of using “independent security monitoring” that is usually required under agency policy for data with individuals personal information.
“Should bad actors gain access to this cloud environment, Americans may be susceptible to widespread identity theft, may lose vital health care and food benefits, and the government may be responsible for reissuing every American a new Social Security number at great cost,” Mr. Borges’s complaint said.