When the Trump administration thought of firing employees from the Department of Energy, as part of its attempt to trim the federal government workforce, it terminated some employees of the National Nuclear Security Administration or NNSA too. Later, however, it was made to realise that it wasn’t the best of moves because these indispensable employees were part of the workforce responsible for designing, building and maintaining the nuclear weapons of the US.
A senior official of NNSA actually issued a public call to action when the layoff notices came, raising concerns about the thoughtless terminations.
Of course the administration then realised the mistake and decided to bring them back, but it wasn’t as easy as they thought. Why? Because post firing them thoughtlessly the Department of Energy e-mail accounts of the fired staff members were rendered useless. Simply put, there was no way of getting in touch with these extremely skilled employees in the absence of any new contact details. Officials are literally struggling to reconnect with them to inform them that they have been reinstated.
Questions are being raised about the manner in which Elon Musk’s Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) is carrying out the exercise of trimming the federal workforce, without giving serious thought.
Last month, the administration under Trump had offered full-time federal employees salary till September if they opted to resign immediately. This ‘deferred resignation programme’ allowed employees to earn a salary and remain ‘employed’ even while their work was reduced and their role gradually eliminated. The move was expected to save billions of dollars with a minimum of five per cent of the federal workforce anticipated to accept the offer.
