“You’re fired” - just kidding: Hundreds of recent CDC layoffs just another administrative error by Trump’s government
The Trump administration had another ‘oops’ moment after it fired over 4,000 federal workers, telling over half of those from the CDC it was a mistake.
Taking advantage of the government shutdown, the Trump administration began firing federal workers on Friday. President Trump said that the layoffs “should be Democrat-oriented,” since he blames the Democrats for starting the shutdown.
The legality of the move has been called into question with the American Federation of Government Employees, the union that represents federal workers, filing a lawsuit immediately after the layoffs were announced. According to a court filing over 4,100 federal staff across a number of agencies were given pink slips.
However, almost as soon as those were sent, it was realized that over half of the 1,300 sent to workers at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention were handed out by mistake. The affected employees have since been informed of the error with a spokesperson for Health and Human Services telling CNN that the workers “were never separated from the agency.”
However, this is just the latest ‘oops’ moment for the Trump administration which previously had to scramble to rehire federal workers that were hastily sacked earlier this year. This included 450 employees at the CDC including workers focused on HIV, Viral Hepatitis, STD, and Tuberculosis Prevention, and environmental health risks like childhood lead exposure.
Coding error caused CDC staff to be mistakenly fired
According to an HHS official, it seems the roughly 700 employees at the CDC that were mistakenly told they were fired was the result of a coding error on the notices. “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,” director of communications for HHS Andrew Nixon said.
Among the employees that were reinstated include those who publish the Morbidity and Mortality Weekly Report, a flagship journal of the agency. Additionally, erroneously fired staff from the National Center for Immunization and Respiratory Diseases, the Global Health Center, and the Public Health Infrastructure Center were informed they still have a job.
More worryingly, as the US faces its worst measles outbreak since the disease was eradicated over twenty years ago, the “disease detectives” in the Epidemic Intelligence Service, along with other staff, were told they were fired as well as Athalia Christie, who is the incident commander for the measles response. An official told CNN that they “think” they have all been brought back.
Dr. Nirav Shah, who was formerly the principal deputy director of the CDC but resigned this year was critical of the goof up. “It’s pure managerial incompetence,” he told CNN, adding, “I used to think that chaos was the byproduct of this managerial incompetence. Now I start to wonder whether the chaos is the point.”
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