Federal workers in Chicago left confused by mass firings, sudden rehiring
CHICAGO (WLS) -- The confusion continues for federal employees across the country as the Trump administration moves forward with mass layoffs aimed at reducing government waste.
The scattershot approach targeting many federal agencies has some elected officials, bureaucrats, and union leaders saying the so-called "Department of Government Efficiency," known as DOGE, is creating chaos and making mistakes with serious safety concerns by firing thousands of federal workers.
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Still thawing from their bitter cold public fight in Chicago's federal plaza Tuesday, newly-fired employees of the Environmental Protection Agency refreshed their email Wednesday to find a terse employment update: "Rescission of Notification of Termination..."
READ MORE | Federal workers in Chicago protest mass firings by Trump administration
"Just overall, things are chaotic. There's been so much disruption. They tried to do this firing of probationary employees so quickly," said Nicole Cantello, the president of AFGE Local 704, the union representing about 1,000 federal employees in the Chicago area.
She said they still don't know how many employees were let go en masse without warning on Friday.
Emails forwarded to the ABC7 I-Team by two fired, and now rehired, employees were identical. Both were sent Wednesday morning and read, "This is to provide notification that the Agency is rescinding your termination. You are not being removed from EPA or from federal service at this time."
That counteracts the emails the same employees sent the I-Team on Friday evening, saying, "The Agency finds that you have failed to demonstrate fully your qualifications for continued employment."
Bridget Lynch and Nyla McCranie had both been fired after little more than a month at the EPA when they talked with the I-Team Tuesday.
"I've been working hard over the last month to learn the statues of the safe drinking water act so I can be an excellent worker and use my scientific background," Lynch said.
"If there's no one working on environmental health, safety, if there's no one at the IRS, no one at the EPA... all of America will be unsafe," McCraine added.
The boomerang employment status at the hands of DOGE and Elon Musk is underway at multiple federal agencies.
RELATED | A comprehensive look at DOGE's firings and layoffs so far
On Wednesday, Illinois Senator Tammy Duckworth said workers with the Veterans Crisis Line were fired.
"After I raised these cases to the VA and spoke out about them, it sounds like, thankfully, at least some of these employees will be rehired," she said.
Also, employees working on the rapidly spreading bird flu were abruptly fired over the weekend.
The U.S. Department of Agriculture acknowledged those are "public safety positions," telling the I-Team, "... we are working to swiftly rectify the situation and rescind those letters."
Researchers said with a spreading virus, each day is part of precious work.
Pablo Penaloza-MacMaster, an Associate Professor of Microbiology and Immunology at Northwestern University, told the I-Team it's alarming when vital research, tracking emerging viruses, is interrupted due to funding or staffing. He worries a disruption in the surveillance of bird flu could miss a potentially important spike in the disease.
"It's like watching a pot of hot water. When you look away is when there could be an explosion. It'll boil when you are not constantly watching it," he said.
Many, but not all, of the federal workers caught up in the mass firings have been probationary employees, people within the first two years on the job.
According to the most recent data from the Office of Personnel Management, there are more than 220,000 federal workers on the government payroll who've been working less than a year.
Because this is all happening so quickly, the government and agencies don't seem to have any clear idea how many people have been fired, and more specifically, how many of them are now being rehired.
