questions from federal workers who are currently under attack

[ResidentialBusiness]

This post was written by Alison Green and published on Ask a Manager.

I am being inundated with letters from federal employees and others affected by the new administration’s changes in the last week — which have included ending investigations and enforcement related to discrimination in the workplace (*see note below); illegally firing 17 inspectors general; laying off employees working on accessibility, equity, and diversity; freezing or cancelling funding for scientific research; halting all federal grants, loans and other financial assistance programs (although a judge temporarily blocked that yesterday); ordering the impoundment of funds already appropriated by Congress; halting all meetings, travel, and communications from many agencies; directing federal workers to report on each other and threatening those who don’t; ending telework; and many other actions intended to dismantle the federal workforce.

Much of this is already being challenged in court and will continue to be.

For an idea of what else might be coming, the Project 2025 agenda — which is now being openly implemented, despite Trump distancing himself from it during the campaign — also includes banning unions for public service workers, firing civil service workers and replacing them with political loyalists, allowing companies to stop paying overtime, permitting states to opt out of federal overtime and minimum wage laws, and eliminating child labor protections.

* Note that the order ending workplace discrimination investigations and enforcement only applies to federal contractors, not to other employers. Title VII of the Civil Rights Act, the main federal work anti-discrimination law, remains in effect and can only be rescinded by Congress. However, it signals the sort of direction we can expect to be given to the EEOC at some point as well. It’s important to note Bostock, the 2020 U.S. Supreme Court decision that protects employees against discrimination because of sexuality or gender identity, also remains in effect for now.

Now, some letters. Note these are quick answers because the situation is both urgent and rapidly unfolding and, frankly, no one has great answers yet — and the best guidance can likely be found in the links I’ve included at the end to people who are working on these issues specifically.

1. Do I stay and fight, or cut and run?

I was wondering if you had any tips, advice, prayers, etc. for those of us currently working at federal jobs being targeted by Trump’s executive orders. I love the agency I work at, but the orders are going to make my job almost impossible, and there are surely more to come as he has publicly declared my agency as an enemy. We’ve already frozen hiring and internal promotions, and laid off our DEI staff. My agency was planning to pay for me to go to law school but that is obviously not happening now. How can we know when to stay and fight, or when to cut and run? I am my family’s sole income earner, health insurance provider, and to make matters worse, I’m currently on maternity leave until May.

A lot of what the administration is doing is designed to demoralize people and get them to quit on their own and stop carrying out the missions of their agencies. One school of thought is not to make it easy for them; if they want to lay off you, make them lay you off (which will also make you eligible for unemployment benefits, which quitting won’t). That said, it’s not always that simple. You need to balance that against your morale, how you feel ethically about staying, what work will be asked of you, your finances… Different people may make that calculation differently, and those of us watching from the outside should begrudge absolutely no one who decides to get out.

One big caution: the memo that went out yesterday asking for “voluntary resignations” in exchange for getting paid through September 30 should not be trusted. Senator Tim Kaine noted last night that it’s a trap, the administration doesn’t have the authority to offer it, and the promised pay-outs may not materialize. They want you to take that offer so they can avoid lawsuits, and there’s a reason it sounds a lot like what Elon Musk did at Twitter (when, as it happens, workers also didn’t receive promised severance).

2. What should I do if we stop getting paid?

I work for a nonprofit organization that is funded entirely by the federal government, through the Department of the Interior. Although our funding for the entire fiscal year was approved in advance, the mechanism by which we receive payments monthly (ASAP) has frozen all payments, and it looks as though we won’t be able to withdraw our money on 2/1 as we usually do, unless something changes in the next week.

We have some money saved up that belongs to the organization directly and is not encumbered. Our board might decide to use this money to continue to meet payroll, or it might not. If they decide to do the bare minimum to keep the organization running (pay my boss, pay the building rent, stuff like that), what should I do? They might ask me to work without pay for a while in hopes that our funding will be restored, but I . . . do not want to do that. I think that I am considered non-exempt (have an email in to our bookkeeper asking about that, but I have a worry he doesn’t actually know, which is another issue altogether) so I wouldn’t object to working a couple of hours a week for a while just to keep things from falling totally apart, but that’s about it. Should I file for unemployment, even if they don’t officially let me go? Is this considered a furlough? Should I ask the board to take a specific action (like letting us go, or putting us on furlough) in order to access unemployment insurance? I’m in New York State.

I guess I’m confused because this all might be temporary and we’re not technically federal employees, so it’s hard to research what is happening (I can find out what happens to federal employees during a shutdown, but this isn’t quite that). It might get fixed next week! Or the week after! But also, it might not.

I was hoping to be unaffected by this new administration because in his first term, he only targeted public lands that had something to exploit (like oil or coal or natural gas or something) and the park unit I work with does not have that. And yet, here we are.

You should not work without pay. If you’re asked to, you can say, “Legally I don’t think we can work without pay and I wouldn’t be comfortable doing that. I think we should encourage everyone to apply for unemployment while we wait for clarity about what will happen.” (That said, if you actively want to a couple of hours a week in order to ensure you all have work to come back to, I won’t quibble with you about that, given that you’re at a nonprofit where you’re presumably invested in the mission.)

If they stop paying you, you should file for unemployment. This is why unemployment benefits are there! You don’t need to wait for anyone to officially use the word “furlough”; if you’re not getting paid, you can apply immediately.

3. How do I move on to a new job?

I’ve been a U.S. federal employee for over a decade and a half. I love my job and my coworkers, I’m passionate about what I do, and I had spent most of the last several years planning to stay in this job until retirement.

Enter the current political administration. There have been multiple political administrations that have come and gone while I’ve been with my agency, and plenty of political vitriol from people who think federal employees are all a bunch of useless bureaucrats without any clue of what we actually do, or who make changes to our work without understanding the consequences. But this time feels different. From Russell Vought saying that the administration wants to “put [federal workers] in trauma” and make us “not want to go to work because [we] are increasingly viewed as the villains,” to the various executive orders that came out on day 1 of the new presidency, to the new president asking the heads of agencies to put forth names of employees they can fire at-will, it’s been a lot of hate directed at us for … existing, and doing our jobs.

My agency has already contacted us to let us know that they’re getting rid of telework (something he specifically said he wanted to do so as to push attrition, rather than because there’s a reason for it or even that he thinks it’s bad; no, it’s because he wants us all to quit so he can tear the government down as quickly as possible and sell it for parts). Today I came to work to an email stating that DEIA initiatives have been banned because they allegedly divide us by race and are a waste of taxpayer dollars; we were told to snitch on anyone that we knew has tried to change such initiatives to other names and report them to an OPM email (Office of Personnel Management). We have 10 days to do so or face unknown consequences. This afternoon I was finally broken by hearing that the agency issuing passports is not only choosing not to issue them for people who have a gender marker X or are changing their gender; they are also allegedly confiscating all of the legal documents related to the passport application.

I can’t do this. I signed up to serve the American public, not to snitch on my coworkers to some version of the Secret Police or torment queer people. (I have some ideas of what sorts of unethical things could be asked of employees at my agency and I’m equally not down for them.) Currently I’m the sole financial support in my family (minus a very small amount of income from my spouse’s freelancing), and just losing my job or quitting would also be potentially financially devastating.

So …. how do I move on to a new job? I don’t even know how to write a normal resume anymore. (I know you have resume and cover letter writing advice on your site and I’ll look at them once I’m a tiny bit over the overwhelming grief of watching this all happen, but this is just a point to say that I haven’t done this in ages.)

What I’m looking for is an idea for how and where to start looking, both for myself and, I imagine, for other federal employees who read your site. Most of my skills are in processing policy and working with the public to help inform them of that policy, and to handle their interactions with our agency. I’m good with detail and research, have good customer service skills (although I’d rather not do full-time customer service work), and have a lot of bureaucratic skills (being able to work within extremely specific rule structures, for example). About the only thing I can think of doing right now would be moving to a lower level of government (my state and region are both very blue so working for the state/county/city would be okay); I’m sure I could find something that makes a positive difference in my community. Do you, or any of your readers, have ideas on possible directions to move (including but not limited to other government positions)? How do I find them? I really want a way to do good things for my community rather than just making money for a corporation. And I’m not particularly mobile or open to moving, but I live in a large metropolitan area so that’s not as limiting as it could be. Any thoughts?

Yes, look at state and local government positions that are parallel or adjacent to your current job. You’ll find their job postings on their websites.

You might also look at public policy jobs, although some of those are very precarious right now too, depending on specifically what they do and who they do it for. Still, you should look at options there.

I’ll throw this out to readers for other ideas as well.

4. How do we help each other?

I’m a federal contractor, and things are bleak at my agency. A lot of career people have been placed on administrative leave, and other contractors have been furloughed already. My employer (the contracting company) has little to no information about what will happen (though to be fair no one knows). At this point it’s not if we get furloughed, it’s when.

I’ve been trying to connect everyone with each other’s contact information so we can support each other when the knife falls. I’ve had the bad luck to be laid off before, and the most helpful thing was having each other’s contact information. But is there anything else we can do on a workplace level to help each other make it through?

Share information. Share your networks with each other. Know your rights under the National Labor Relations Act (which doesn’t cover federal employees but does cover federal contractors) and any union contract if you have one. Know the lines you personally won’t cross; support your coworkers in figuring out theirs.

Contact your elected representatives and ask for congressional action on the many orders and actions currently undermining and in some cases outright breaking the law.

* * *

Other resources:

A journalist who is one of many reporters asking government employees who are willing to talk to contact her. You can ask to remain anonymous and stay off the record.

How to securely send anonymous tips to ProPublica

Info on how OPM handles severance pay

A guide to the first-day executive actions on the federal workforce (this has excellent, concrete advice for what federal employees should be doing right now)

What civil servants need to know in week two (this too)

A DOJ attorney’s guide to upholding ethical obligations and the rule of law

A civil servant’s checklist of current rights

Resources for civil servants (tons of useful stuff here)

How *you* can protect democracy (for everyone, not just federal workers)

Contact your elected officials

And I’ll just leave this here — a CIA guidebook that was distributed in Nazi-occupied countries with advice for office workers and bureaucrats on how to safely resist the Nazis without putting yourself or your family in danger (and here’s a link to it at the Wayback Machine instead if you’re concerned about viewing it on a government website).

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