Layoffs and Job Reductions

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      DOGE Cuts 9/11 Survivors’ Fund, and Republicans Join Democrats in Rebuke

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      After 20 percent of the World Trade Center Health Program staff was terminated last week, Democratic lawmakers were outraged. On Wednesday, Republican lawmakers joined them.In a rare pushback against President Donald J. Trump, a coalition of congressional Republicans from the New York area rebuked the president for cuts to a federal program that administers aid to emergency workers and others suffering from toxins related to the terrorist attacks of Sept. 11, 2001.In a letter to Mr. Trump, seven Republicans urged Mr. Trump “as a native New Yorker who lived in New York City as it recovered from the 9/11 terrorist attacks” to reverse the cuts to the World Trade Center Health Program and rehire staff members who were fired several days ago.They echoed the immediate outcry from Democratic lawmakers and advocates when the cuts were made beginning late last week, as part of Elon Musk’s so-called department of government efficiency, or DOGE, which is cutting spending and eliminating jobs across a wide swath of federal agencies. On Monday, New York’s Democratic senators, Chuck Schumer and Kirsten Gillibrand, issued a letter demanding the cuts be restored.The initial reaction from Republicans was more muted, but by Wednesday, as it became clearer that the blowback to the firings was widespread, the Republican resistance grew more vocal, especially from districts in and around New York City, where the memory of 9/11 still resonates powerfully.“This staff reduction will only make it more difficult for the program to supervise its contracts and to care for its members who are comprised of the brave men and women who ran towards danger and helped in the aftermath of the 9/11 terrorist attacks,” the congressional members wrote in the letter.It was largely written by Representative Andrew R. Garbarino, a Republican from Long Island, and co-signed by five other Republican congressional colleagues from New York and Representative Chris Smith from New Jersey. The other congressional co-signers were Nick LaLota, Mike Lawler, Claudia Tenney, Nicole Malliotakis and Nick Langworthy, all supporters of Mr. Trump.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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      Courts Force a Window Into Musk’s Secretive Unit

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      When President Trump signed an order imbuing the so-called Department of Government Efficiency with even more power over the federal work force, Elon Musk was there, championing the work as an exercise in transparency.“All of our actions are maximally transparent,” Mr. Musk said last week, standing in the Oval Office. “In fact, I don’t think there’s been — I don’t know of a case where an organization has been more transparent than the DOGE organization.”But in case after case, federal judges have begged to differ.The work of Mr. Musk, who Mr. Trump has said is the leader of the operation tasked with making “large scale” reductions across every department, has been largely shrouded in secrecy. Team members have spent weeks burrowing into multiple federal agencies, demanding access to data for undisclosed purposes.Anxious career employees have received little direct information, leaving them reliant on office rumors and news reports for updates. The identities of the members of Mr. Musk’s team, too, have been closely held.Court filings in the torrent of lawsuits challenging the incursions have offered a crucial, though limited, window. As some of the only firsthand accounts of what Mr. Musk’s associates are doing across a number of departments, they paint a picture of a tightly managed process in which small groups of government employees have swept in and out of agencies, grabbing up data in apparent pursuit of larger political projects.The filings have also offered revelations about what information security and ethics trainings those employees have undergone. But many questions remain, frustrating the judges trying the cases.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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      Southwest Layoffs Will Take 15% of Its Work Force

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      The company said the cuts, the first round of broad layoffs in the airline’s 53-year history, would affect mostly corporate employees.Southwest Airlines on Monday announced plans to cut 15 percent of its work force, the first round of broad layoffs in the airline’s 53-year history.The company said it planned to cut about 1,750 jobs, with the cuts mostly focused on corporate positions. The layoffs will include 11 senior leaders with titles of vice president or higher, the airline said. Most of the cuts will be carried out by the end of June.In a statement, Southwest’s chief executive, Bob Jordan, called the decision “unprecedented.”“We are at a pivotal moment as we transform Southwest Airlines into a leaner, faster and more agile organization,” he said. “I arrived at this decision thoughtfully and carefully, knowing how hard it will be to say goodbye to colleagues who have been a significant part of our Southwest culture and accomplishments.”Mr. Jordan’s own job was under threat last year after the hedge fund Elliott Management amassed an approximately 10 percent stake in the airline and began to push for widespread change, including Mr. Jordan’s ouster. Elliott had accused Mr. Jordan and the airline’s board of complacency and failing to control costs, eroding profit margins that were once the envy of the industry.In response, Mr. Jordan laid out a three-year plan to make sweeping changes, including dropping the airline’s seat-yourself policy in favor of assigned seating, adding seats with extra legroom and introducing red-eye flights — the first of which began last week — to make more use of its planes.Southwest also agreed to add board members recommended by the investment firm, and Elliott ultimately dropped its demand for Mr. Jordan’s departure.The job cuts announced on Monday will save Southwest about $210 million this calendar year and $300 million next year, the airline said. But those figures do not include a one-time cost of $60 million to $80 million to pay out severance and other benefits to laid-off workers.Southwest had an unrivaled 47-year streak of annual profits until 2020, when it lost money along with the rest of the industry during the Covid pandemic. It has reported profits each year since and remains the only one of the four largest U.S. airlines to have never filed for bankruptcy protection, though its costs have outpaced those of some of its peers.Still, the airline, which offers only limited international flights, is a behemoth: Southwest carries more passengers and operates more flights in the United States than any other carrier. The airline is also beloved by fliers, who have routinely given its economy class the highest customer satisfaction scores of any carrier, according to J.D. Power, a market research firm. More

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      A National Park Guide Was Flying Home From a Work Trip. She Was Fired Midair.

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      Helen Dhue was flying home after a work trip to Ajo, Ariz., for the National Park Service on Friday, she said. But when she landed in Dallas for a layover, she found out she had been fired. She tried to log on to her work email, but her access was already cut off.Turns out, Ms. Dhue, a 23-year-old park guide at Palo Alto Battlefield National Historical Park, was one of 1,000 National Park Service employees affected by the Trump administration’s cuts to the federal work force, according to groups that represent public lands and parks workers.“The department determined that you have failed to demonstrate fitness or qualifications for continued employment because your subject matter knowledge, skills and abilities do not meet the department’s current needs,” read the email, which was sent to Ms. Dhue while she was in the air. (She later obtained a printed copy of the email from her boss.)The department did not immediately provide comments for this article on Saturday.The National Park Service firings came as the Trump administration escalated its efforts to cull the federal work force. Workers were also fired at the Environmental Protection Agency, the Agriculture Department and the Energy Department, among other agencies, on Friday.Many of the dismissals have targeted the roughly 200,000 federal workers who were on probationary status, generally because they had started their positions within the last year. Some fired employees, including some at the National Park Service, have already indicated that they will appeal.Mr. Trump and his supporters have backed the moves as a way to cut what they see as unnecessary government spending. “President Trump was elected with a mandate to create a more effective and efficient federal government that serves all Americans, and we are doing just that,” said a spokesperson for the E.P.A. after that agency announced layoffs.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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      Judge Extends Halt on Trump Plan to Dismantle U.S.A.I.D.

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      For at least another week, a judge will keep a hold on a directive placing more than 2,000 employees on administrative leave and forcing the return of overseas workers.A federal judge on Thursday moved to extend by one week a temporary restraining order preventing the Trump administration from carrying out plans that would all but dismantle the U.S. Agency for International Development.The order, which Judge Carl Nichols of the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia said he would file later Thursday, continues to stall a directive that would put a quarter of its employees on administrative leave while forcing those posted overseas to return to the United States within 30 days.Judge Nichols said he would rule by the end of next week on whether to grant the plaintiffs’ request for a preliminary injunction that would indefinitely block key elements of the high-profile Trump administration effort.The plan was driven in large part by Elon Musk, the billionaire tech entrepreneur tasked with making cuts to the federal budget, to shutter an agency he and Mr. Trump have vilified. The temporary restraining order applies to about 2,700 direct hires of U.S.A.I.D., including hundreds of Foreign Service officers, who would have been put on administrative leave under the directive, which also warned that contractors’ jobs could be terminated.The lawsuit was filed by two unions representing the affected U.S.A.I.D. employees: the American Foreign Service Association, to which aid workers in global missions belong, and the American Federation of Government Employees, which represents other direct hires. They have argued that President Trump’s executive order freezing foreign aid for 90 days and subsequent directives to dismantle certain U.S.A.I.D. operations and reduce staff were unconstitutional, and have asked the court to overturn them.Democratic lawmakers, U.S.A.I.D. workers, and the aid organizations that depend on U.S. foreign assistance have decried any moves to unilaterally shut down the agency as unlawful, as its role in the federal government was established by law and Congress funded it, like the rest of the government, through March 14.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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      USAID Lifesaving Aid Remains Halted Despite Rubio’s Promise

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      When Secretary of State Marco Rubio announced last month that lifesaving humanitarian work would be exempt from a freeze on foreign aid, global health workers breathed a collective sigh of relief.But a new directive has put such exemptions on hold.Several senior employees at the U.S.A.I.D. Bureau of Global Health received an email Tuesday telling them to “please hold off on any more approvals” pending further directions from the acting chief of staff, according to a copy reviewed by The New York Times.Senior officials at the Bureau of Humanitarian Affairs received similar instructions during a meeting this week, according to a person familiar with what transpired.For weeks, U.S.A.I.D. officials and the organizations, contractors and consultants who partner with them have struggled to continue the kind of work that Mr. Rubio promised to preserve — “core lifesaving medicine, medical services, food, shelter and substance assistance.”Some waivers have been issued to programs that fall under Mr. Rubio’s definition of “lifesaving” aid, but the payments system called Phoenix that U.S.A.I.D. relies on to disburse financial assistance has been inaccessible for weeks. That means even programs that received waivers have struggled to continue.The State Department did not reply to a request for comment for this article.On Tuesday, Elon Musk, the billionaire tech entrepreneur empowered by President Trump to combat the agency, told reporters in the Oval Office that the administration had “turned on funding for Ebola prevention and for H.I.V. prevention.” But in reality, the Ebola funding and virtually all of the H.I.V. prevention funding remains frozen, according to two U.S.A.I.D. employees and several aid groups.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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      Trump Orders Plans for ‘Large Scale’ Work Force Cuts and Expands Musk’s Power

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      President Trump signed an executive order on Tuesday directing agency officials to draw up plans for “large scale” cuts to the federal work force and further empowered the billionaire Elon Musk and his team to approve which career officials are hired in the future.The order gives the so-called Department of Government Efficiency vast reach over the shape of the Civil Service as the Trump administration tries to sharply cut the number of employees working for the federal government. It states that, aside from agencies involved in functions like law enforcement and immigration enforcement, executive branch departments will need hiring approval from an official working with Mr. Musk’s team.Each federal agency, with some exceptions, will be allowed to “hire no more than one employee for every four employees that depart” after a hiring freeze is lifted, according to Mr. Trump’s order. New career hires would have to be made in consultation with a “DOGE Team Lead,” the order stated. It also said that agencies should not fill career positions that Mr. Musk’s team deems unnecessary, unless an agency head — not a member of Mr. Musk’s initiative — decides that those positions should be filled.The “work force optimization initiative” was signed by Mr. Trump shortly before he and Mr. Musk spent roughly 30 minutes defending the drastic overhaul in front of reporters in the Oval Office. Mr. Musk, the world’s richest person, has moved rapidly to force change in Washington, an effort he asserted on Tuesday would benefit the public.In the first three weeks of the new Trump administration, Mr. Musk’s team has inserted itself into at least 19 agencies, according to a tally by The New York Times, where it has begun identifying programs to cut.The order is the latest move by Mr. Trump to bolster the authority of Mr. Musk’s effort.Eric Lee/The New York TimesWe are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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      U.S.A.I.D. Workers Brace for the Worst

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      The thousands of people who work for the U.S. government’s main agency for humanitarian aid and disaster relief have been on the front lines of efforts to fight famine, contain virulent infectious diseases like H.I.V. and Ebola, and rebuild infrastructure in impoverished and war-torn countries.On Friday evening, just hours before the vast majority of them were set to have been suspended with pay or laid off, a court issued a limited, temporary order against the Trump administration’s moves to shut down the agency.The order was a temporary reprieve to approximately 2,700 direct hires of the U.S. Agency for International Development who were on administrative leave or set to be placed on leave by midnight Friday. For the past two weeks, they and the contractors who work for the agency had been in the throes of a collective panic as the Trump administration began to lay off staff and signaled it planned to decimate the agency.But the U.S.A.I.D. work force, and the aid industry that relies in large part on the agency’s funding, is still acutely in limbo. On Saturday, U.S.A.I.D. informed employees affected by the order that employees already on administrative leave would be reinstated until the end Friday, Feb. 14, and that no one else would be suspended with pay during that period, according to a copy of the notice viewed by The New York Times. But those employees could still have to wait for weeks, months, or potentially even longer, for a verdict. The case, which was brought on behalf of unions representing the workers, is expected to go to the Supreme Court, and it is unclear whether the jobs will ever exist again.The Trump administration’s announcement this week that U.S.A.I.D. would dismiss almost all of its contractors and that most Foreign Service officers and other direct hires would be put on indefinite administrative leave set off a panic around the globe, as Americans posted in missions abroad scrambled to dismantle and reassemble their lives.The announcement gave Foreign Service officers just 30 days to depart their posts and return to the United States if they wanted the U.S. government to pay for their relocation, forcing nearly the entire diplomatic staff to plan the sort of swift exit that normally only takes place during coups and wars.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More