The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) issued layoff notices to hundreds of employees Wednesday after a federal judge last week shielded some but not all offices within the agency.
“I can confirm that roughly 600 CDC employees were let go,” an American Federation of Government Employees (AFGE) spokesperson said in a statement to The Hill. “The cuts are across the agency including the Division of Violence Prevention, EEO, FOIA, the Office of Financial Resources, the offices of the chief information and chief operating officers, and more.”
The AFGE blasted the timing of the firings, taking place so soon after the fatal shooting that occurred at the CDC’s offices in Atlanta.
“When we face that next public health crisis, we do so with a decimated and demoralized workforce,” the union said in a statement. “HHS [Department of Health and Human Services] has shown that it does not have the organizational or operational capacity to take over the support functions that the agency had before these firings. This reduction in force was operationally a mess. They have shown they are in no way prepared to support CDC when America needs it most.”
Last week, U.S. District Judge Melissa R. DuBose issued a ruling revising her previous injunction in which she found the layoffs were likely unlawful.
“The Executive Branch does not have the authority to order, organize, or implement wholesale changes to the structure and function of the agencies created by Congress,” DuBose wrote in her initial July ruling.
In her order issued last week, she scaled back the scope of the initial ruling. DuBose specified that certain subagencies and programs were blocked off from layoffs, including the National Center for HIV, Viral Hepatitis, STD, and Tuberculosis Prevention; the Division of Reproductive Health; and the National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health.
This left unnamed subagencies open to layoffs.
An HHS spokesperson confirmed the layoffs when reached by The Hill, noting the staff reductions are the final part of the process that began in March as part of President Trump’s Department of Government Efficiency executive order.
The HHS at the time said it was seeking a reduction in workforce of about 10,000 full-time employees.
