The Trump administration fired federal employees in California on Friday after the president said he would use the ongoing government shutdown to reduce the size of the federal workforce.<\/p>\n
On Friday, the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development informed a federal employee union representing federal workers in California that it would layoff workers involved in programs \u201cnot in alignment with the President\u2019s Management Agenda or the Administration\u2019s priorities.\u201d<\/p>\n
According to a recent court filing, at least 442 HUD employees received layoff notices but it\u2019s not clear where those employees were based. According to a federal employee database<\/a>, over 500 HUD employees work in California.<\/p>\n Roberta Beggs, president of National Federation of Federal Employees Local 1450, which represents HUD employees in California and several other states, said that 20 employees represented by her labor group received reduction-in-force notices this week.<\/p>\n The notices informed workers that they would be out of a job by Dec. 9. Of those Local 1450 workers who received notices, one just had a baby and another was recovering from a stroke, Beggs said.<\/p>\n Beggs said the union received notice of the layoffs on Friday, the same day employees were informed, which she said is a violation of NFFE\u2019s labor agreement with the federal government. Agencies are required to inform the union 15 days before issuing reduction-in-force notices to employees, she said.<\/p>\n \u201cThe whole workforce has been pretty traumatized for the past nine months,\u201d Beggs said. \u201cThis is just a continuation.\u201d<\/p>\n Shutting down \u2018Democrat Agencies\u2019<\/p>\n Earlier this month, Trump said on social media<\/a> that he planned to use the shutdown to cut \u201cDemocrat Agencies,\u201d though he did not specify which federal departments he was referring to.<\/p>\n \u201cHUD is implementing a reduction in force to align our programs with the Administration\u2019s priorities and the appropriations available to the department,\u201d an unnamed spokesperson for HUD said in a Friday statement.<\/p>\n It appeared that the agency was making cuts based on the Trump administration\u2019s perceived function of a program, not its actual purpose, Beggs said.<\/p>\n \u201cIt\u2019s very clear that from the way they rolled it out, it had nothing to do with performance,\u201d Beggs said of how the housing department selected which employees to let go. Beggs called the layoffs a \u201chatchet job,\u201d similar to how Elon Musk attempted to lay off employees through the Department of Government Efficiency earlier this year.<\/p>\n Mass layoffs have not previously been a feature of previous government shutdowns.<\/p>\n California is home to roughly 150,000 federal civilian employees, according to recent numbers from the U.S. Office of Personnel Management. Many of those employees are working without pay or furloughed while waiting for Congress to pass a new budget.<\/p>\n Thousands informed of layoffs Friday<\/p>\n