Thousands of federal workers have been moved into new jobs they have little or no training for, according to The Washington Post. The workers, including civil rights lawyers, Social Security staff, and labor specialists, say they've been pushed into unfamiliar roles after waves of firings and resignations since President Donald Trump took office in January.
Civil Rights Staff Reassigned To Unrelated Jobs
Agencies across the federal government have reassigned employees to fill the growing number of vacancies left behind by those who were fired, resigned, or took buyouts. The result, employees say, is inefficient work and growing frustration.
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“It's leaving a Bugatti in the garage,” one former IT worker at the Social Security Administration told the Post, describing their transfer to a disability benefits processing job with no prior experience. They called it a “strategic decapitation of institutional knowledge.”
At the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development, civil rights lawyers who had spent years investigating housing discrimination were reassigned to defend the agency against complaints. One employee said they were moved to a job where they now answer phones. “I've never had a customer service job,” they told the Post. “And you're trying to force me to do what I'm worst at.”
Paul Osadebe, a longtime civil rights attorney at HUD, said he was told to voluntarily shift into a vacant position or be reassigned. “[The reassignments are] another thing, in the long line of efforts, to get us to just quit and abandon ship,” he told the Post. Still, he is being reassigned to defend the agency from lawsuits involving federally insured housing—a field he says he has no background in.
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Trump Administration Says It’s About Efficiency
White House spokesman Davis Ingle defended the reassignments, saying in a statement to the Post that Trump “is committed to making our government as efficient and effective as possible. Everyone serves at the pleasure of the President and he will do what's best to deliver on his promises to the American people.”
But according to many federal workers, the real effect has been chaos. At the U.S. Department of Justice, lawyers who had been focused on protecting workers from discrimination were reassigned to handle Freedom of Information Act requests or internal human resources complaints. “If their goal is to demoralize the workforce, to thin out the workforce, to remove people they don't want in the agency, I think it's been successful,” said Ejaz Baluch, a former DOJ civil rights attorney, who quit after being reassigned. Soon after, the agency asked him to return.
The Office of Personnel Management told the Post that agencies have “extensive flexibility” in reassigning employees, and that workers keep their pay grade. But some now earn high salaries doing much lower-level work, and many say morale is at an all-time low.
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