#US employers added 151k #jobs in Feb, the first full month under the new #Trump admin, extending a streak of job growth to 50 months [#ThankYouJoe]. The #unemployment rate rose to 4.1%, from 4%.
#DOGE’s role: The survey showed a decline of 10k in federal employment. But the report was based on surveys conducted in the 2nd week of Feb, & economists say the admin’s #MassFirings, buyouts & hiring freezes at #FederalAgencies may not fully surface in the monthly data until this spring.
#Trump announced on social media [of course] the next phase of government-gutting.
So far, Trump & #ElonMusk, have directed #MassFirings, prompting lawsuits & sowing confusion. Agencies fired tens of thousands of probationary employees, ignoring personnel laws & what value they brought to the agency.
Trump said, he met with “most of the Secretaries, Elon, & others” to discuss the next phase of reductions.
Appeals court allows #Trump admin to temporarily remove #watchdog lawyer #HamptonDellinger
A federal appeals court on Wed allowed Trump to temporarily remove the head of an #independent watchdog agency who was investigating the admin’s #MassFirings of probationary #FederalWorkers.
In a 2-pg order, the court granted the Trump admin’s request to stay a lower court ruling that blocked Trump from summarily firing #Dellinger, head of the Office of #SpecialCounsel.
#law
https://www.washingtonpost.com/national-security/2025/03/05/court-decision-trump-administration-hampton-dellinger/
#Trump’s address to #Congress: Rather than boycott Trump’s address on Tues to a joint session of Congress, some Democratic lawmakers are inviting former #FederalWorkers to the speech as a way to protest the #MassFirings & funding cuts that have defined Trump’s first month back in office.
#Musk #DOGE #law #USpol
https://www.nytimes.com/2025/03/02/us/politics/democrats-trump-federal-workers.html?smid=url-share
#Trump has also tried to remove more than a dozen #InspectorsGeneral, as well as members of the National #Labor Relations Board [#NLRB] & the #Equal Employment Opportunity Commission [#EEOC]. Many of the ousted ofcls are contesting their removals in court.
In addition to fighting his own ouster, Dellinger has been arguing that the admin’s #MassFirings of probationary #FederalWorkers is illegal.
Elon Musk Gets His Most Brutal Smackdown Yet on #DOGE Firings
The judge slammed the #MassFirings as “illegal.”
https://newrepublic.com/post/192142/elon-musk-brutal-smackdown-doge-firings
"A federal #judge has ordered the Office of Personnel Mgmt to rescind #illegal instructions to cull the workforce of federal agencies...
““The #OPM does not have any authority whatsoever under any statute in the #history of the universe, to hire & fire employees within another agency”"
US Dist Judge William Alsup ordered #OPM to rescind its prior directives to #FederalAgencies including the Dept of #Defense, the #Park Service, Bureau of #Land Management, National #Science Foundation, & others. The ruling is one of the biggest roadblocks so far to #Trump’s effort to slash the federal workforce.
Judge blocks #Trump admin’s #MassFirings of #FederalWorkers
A federal judge ruled that the terminations at several #FederalAgencies, including the Dept of #Defense, were likely #illegal.
A federal judge on Thurs ordered #OPM to rescind directives that initiated the mass firing of probationary govt workers in several agencies across the government, ruling that the terminations were probably illegal, as a group of labor #unions argued in court.
#law #Musk #DOGE
https://www.washingtonpost.com/dc-md-va/2025/02/27/judge-probationary-federal-employee-firings-lawsuit/
An independent government agency that reviews personnel actions in the #FederalWorkForce has ordered 6 government employees to be temporarily reinstated after the #Trump admin carried out #MassFirings of probationary employees earlier this month. The independent agency, the #Merit Systems Protection Board, ruled that the unspecificed #FederalAgencies involved had violated #DueProcess rights in the #firings.
#law #labor #Musk #DOGE #chaos #USpol
https://www.nytimes.com/live/2025/02/25/us/president-trump-news/c3058066-3cce-51a8-b248-e94316acea91?smid=url-share
Another fired employee said the hundreds of dismissals meant that the #aid agency now had only a skeleton crew to respond to #humanitarian crises.
The appointee running day-to-day operations at #USAID is #PeteMarocco, a #State Dept official overseeing foreign aid who was a #divisive figure at the agency & other government departments in the first #Trump administration. Early this month, #MarcoRubio announced he was taking over the aid agency as acting administrator.
~400 people were fired in recent days from #humanitarian assistance positions…. ~200 of those were contractors for the Bureau for Humanitarian Assistance, …& another 200 were part of a unit called the Support Relief Group, a collection of #crisis experts who helped the bureau in responding quickly to #NaturalDisasters & armed conflicts. Now only about a dozen people remain in that group.
In addition, 36 people were fired from the Office of Transition Initiatives, a unit in the agency’s conflict prevention bureau that specializes in helping partner countries with political transitions & #democratic initiatives, said US officials & recent agency employees.
The latest round of dismissals occurred on Friday night, when hundreds of people working for the agency’s Bureau for #Humanitarian Assistance got emails saying their jobs had been terminated. Two employees who got the emails said they were strange because they did not state any job titles specifically & did not have the recipients’ names in the “to” field. They were generic emails sent out in a large wave.
‘Air traffic controllers cannot do their work without us’
The #Trump admin has defended its cuts at the Federal Aviation Administration by saying #safety-critical employees weren’t affected. Experts disagree.
#law #transportation #ElonMusk #DOGE #FAA #TSA #MassFirings #FederalAgencies #AirTravel
https://www.politico.com/news/2025/02/20/faa-firings-aviation-safety-experts-00205160
Back in their districts, #GOP lawmakers get an earful on #DOGE & #ElonMusk
Town halls this week for congressional #Republicans from Georgia to Wisconsin to Oregon grew testy as voters showed up to vent, outraged at the firing of workers and the Department of Government Efficiency’s access to sensitive data. Protesters showed up around the country at lawmakers’ offices.
#law #USpol #Trump #MassFirings #InfoSec #privacy
https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2025/02/21/doge-georgia-town-hall-gop/
US District Judge Christopher R. Cooper, who was appointed by President Barack Obama, ruled against the National #Treasury Employees #Union & 4 other #labor organizations that requested a temporary halt to the #Trump / #ElonMusk #MassFirings while a lawsuit challenging them is pending. More than half a million federal workers could lose their #jobs through the Trump admin’s firings & a separate program of deferred resignations, or buyouts, the unions said in legal filings.
The #MassFirings started over Presidents’ Day weekend, part of what federal employees in text groups & online forums called the “#StValentinesDayMassacre,” which has created #chaos across the federal govt. Supervisors warned their workers to quickly pull their documents off websites & email them to personal accounts so they’d have copies….
A federal judge in Washington gave #Trump a victory *for now* when she declined on Tues to bar #ElonMusk & his associates from having access to data at 7 #FederalAgencies or involvement in #MassFirings.
In an order on Tues, Judge Tanya S. #Chutkan, wrote that a coalition of 14 state AGs had failed in seeking an emergency halt to show specific examples of how #Musk’s team’s sweeping data collection efforts could cause those states imminent or irreparable harm.
#law #DOGE
https://www.nytimes.com/live/2025/02/18/us/trump-news/elon-musk-doge-lawsuit-agencies?smid=nytcore-ios-share&referringSource=articleShare
