When the guides who work at Independence National Historical Park received an email in late February instructing them to write five bullet points about what they had accomplished in the past week, some of them felt it would be a pointless exercise to justify their jobs to a federal government whose recent firing spree suggests their work doesn't matter.
"They could explain what they spoke about with park visitors – the formation of the nation and the framing of the Constitution of the United States – but they're writing to people who have no conception of what the Constitution is, as far as I'm concerned," Ed Welch, president of the American Federation of Government Employees Local 2058, said of the email sent by the Office of Personnel Management to more than 2 million federal employees. "It's nothing short of harassment."
The bargaining unit Welch represents covers about 300 National Park Service workers, including the rangers and guides at INHP. He called it a "great irony" that the staff in Philadelphia speak all day about the "miracle that happened here," as George Washington proudly put it, only to go home worried that they'll be axed in a way that seems to trample the Constitution.
For weeks, union leaders for federal workers have been sounding alarm about the impact of the job cuts piling up at agencies targeted by the Department of Government Efficiency, the White House task force charged with eliminating waste and fraud from the federal bureaucracy.
The DOGE-directed email that went out to federal employees last month was the first in what's expected to be a series that will gather answers to be reviewed by artificial intelligence – not people – to help determine where the federal workforce can be reduced.
Since mid-February, about 30,000 federal workers in the United States have been fired or laid off at DOGE's urging. Most of them were probationary employees with less than a year or two of experience in their roles. In the Philadelphia region, where there are about 9,400 federal employees, firings have hit agencies including the Internal Revenue Service, National Park Service, Environmental Protection Agency, Veterans Affairs and the Federal Emergency Management Agency.
"What's happened here, frankly, I've never seen anything like it," Philip Glover, national vice president for the AFGE District 3 in Philadelphia, said of the way DOGE operates. "I hate to use inflammatory words like coup, but I'm not convinced this isn't some sort of destruction of the government from inside."
Labor law has 'gone out the window'
Led by billionaire Elon Musk, DOGE has leveraged federal offices in Washington to issue government-wide directives aimed at slashing jobs and canceling federal contracts deemed to be expendable. The group has been criticized for acting indiscriminately, sometimes firing and then scrambling to rehire employees in vital government functions.
DOGE's own public website listing purported federal savings has repeatedly come under scrutiny because of glaring errors in its accounting, among other unverified claims of fraud and waste trumpeted by Musk.
"It's not following any of the norms of government and any of the norms of contracts," Glover said. "That's what I want to get across. This is not normal. And the public should know that."
Glover's 53 AFGE local bargaining units are spread across Pennsylvania and Delaware, where he's fielded calls for help from fired probationary employees and other union members fearful of sweeping layoffs that could be pending at their agencies as DOGE prepares for broader federal layoffs.
Probationary employees were targeted first, Glover said, because they don't hold the same appeal rights as longer-tenured civil servants. The termination letters many received claimed their firings were for poor performance, despite providing no proof of problems with their work. In many cases, according to Glover and other AFGE union officials, managers at local agency offices had given their fired probationary employees positive reviews not long before they were let go.
At the Veterans Benefits Administration office in Philadelphia, for example, where roughly half of the 1,200 employees formerly served in the military, two probationary employees fired last month did not have any disciplinary or performance-related complaints about their work, said one union leader for the VA's AFGE Local 940 who spoke on the condition of anonymity to talk candidly at a sensitive time. Both former employees are service-connected veterans, meaning they developed disabilities stemming from their military duties. They were told they were not meeting expectations.
"This is disgusting," the VA union leader said.. "We have good, hard-working Americans who came to the VA because they appreciate the mission. They want to help veterans. Nobody deserves this kind of treatment. It's like kicking a dog that loves you. These people love their government and their veterans."
At NPS, Welch counted at least 22 probationary employees who have been fired in his bargaining unit.
"For many of these employees, these were dream jobs that were highly sought after," Welch said.
Fired probationary employees were given a glimmer of hope last week when a federal judge in California paused further job cuts and cast doubt on the legality of the firings that have already happened. The White House responded Tuesday by shifting its policy, saying federal agencies hold "ultimate decision-making authority" on their staffs even if DOGE makes recommendations for layoffs. It's not clear if there's a legal path for thousands of fired probationary workers to get their jobs back.
Welch said DOGE's tactics have been extremely difficult to fight using traditional channels for workplace grievances. DOGE-led directives are overriding existing agency standards for performance reviews, he said, and the emails asking employees for bullet points only rub salt in the wound.
"It's an effrontery and we view it as illegal," Welch said. "In the union, we deal with the law, beginning with our contract that has the force of law. And we deal with the federal government, so there's a great many statutes and regulations. With this administration so far, it seems like 30 years of established labor law have gone out the window."
A loss of morale
The threat of job loss has left staff at many federal agencies increasingly paranoid and paralyzed from day to day, union officials said.
"We're all worried about when the next shoe is going to drop," Welch said.
As the Trump administration looks to pass a new budget – or get temporary federal funding approved by Congress this month – Democrats have made DOGE's powers a sticking point in negotiations. If a deal can't be reached by March 14, the federal government is headed toward a shutdown that adds another source of anxiety for federal employees.
"Everybody is thinking about what they're going to do next because the threat of termination is looming over them every minute of every day," said the union official for VA workers. "What that does is it takes good, hard-working people and it distracts them from their work. Their productivity is going down because they're not able to concentrate."
The union official warned that basic government services – including claims processing for vulnerable veterans – will take a noticeable hit in timeliness if large numbers of employees are fired.
"Depending on how the next few weeks go, it could be really horrific," the union official said. "If things continue this way, I think we could see major backlogs of claims processing on every level."
Glover, whose work in the federal government stretches back to President George H.W. Bush, said it might take years or decades to restore productivity at federal agencies gutted by DOGE. He fears the public is being flooded with misinformation and won't realize the impact until it's too late.
"All this noise that they're coming up with, that's permeating through the public and it's hard to cut through that," he said. "The White House has a huge megaphone and the public is listening to things that are not true."
The VA union official said too many Americans have fallen for simplistic messages about the role of the federal workforce in their lives and communities. He hopes the upheaval raises public awareness about the people who manage services and benefits that help support millions of Americans.
"We haven't put a face to this nebulous thing we call the government," the union official said. "It doesn't operate without people. It's your neighbors."
Welch predicted a rude awakening for the country if basic government services are cut or become severely crippled.
"I assume people are going to throw a fit," he said. "I don't think the whole country is in a coma."
