‘Will I have a job?’ Federal workers packed of uncertainty, terror over Trump plans

Chelsea Milburn remembers feeling “blessed” to discover her ideal job as a community affairs specialist for the Department of Education, a near-perfect circumstance after her life dramatically changed two years ago after an illness.

But, like more than 228,000 federal workers who telework, Milburn’s job is at uncertainty if President-elect Donald Trump makes excellent on his commitment to require federal workers to profitability to the office five days a week. She has a disability that makes it challenging for her to sit at her desk packed-period.

Many more of the 2.3 million civilian federal workers could misplace their jobs if Trump fulfills other campaign promises to shutter the Department of Education, and overhaul agencies including the fairness Department and Health and Human Services.

“It’s not the first period this has arrive up, it just feels louder this period,” said Milburn, who in November started remote work for the Department of Education after having a similar job for the Navy.

Trump, through his Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE), believes he could save millions of dollars through reorganizing and layoffs, but restructuring the government would also expense jobs in unexpected places.

It’s straightforward to ponder federal workers are only in Washington, D.C., and serve within nameless bureaucracies. But only about 15% of federal employees work in the country’s pool, according to the U.S. Office of Personnel Management. The remaining 85% are spread across large cities like Dallas and state capitals like Carson City, Nevada, where Milburn lives.

They are, among others, the postal workers, the civil engineers and the TSA agents. They are mostly represented by the American Federation of Government Employees, a union of 750,000 federal workers. About 56% of civil service workers are covered by collective bargaining contracts, many of which include remote work arrangements.

While Trump’s profitability-to-office mandate is expected to get major pushback from federal workers, he recently reinforced his way, threatening to receive legal action against the AFGE’s latest deal that extended remote worker protections until 2029.

“If people don’t arrive back to work, arrive back into the office, they’re going to be dismissed,” Trump told reporters about the deal on Dec. 23. “It was a gift to the union, and we are going to obviously be in court to stop it.”

However, AFGE National President Everett Kelley told USA TODAY the union will push back.

“What we worked for is not a gift, it’s called negotiation. Telework and remote work are tools that have helped the federal government boost productivity and efficiency,” said Kelley, citing Office of Management and distribution statistics that only 10% of federal workers are remote.

Although it’s ambiguous how exactly DOGE would cut government spending, Trump has entrusted Tesla CEO, SpaceX founder and billionaire Elon Musk and tech business owner and former Republican presidential candidate Vivek Ramaswamy to navigator the unofficial department’s attempt to streamline the government.

The federal government’s spending in the 2024 budgetary year was $6.75 trillion.

Musk said he could quickly eliminate $2 trillion from the federal distribution but has not provided any specifics on how, and later softened his stance, calling $2 trillion a “best-case outcome.”

He’s promised to make cuts that would reduce the federal workforce and cut federal agencies to about 99 from more than 440.

In Trump’s initial statement announcing DOGE, he said the recent department would provide advice and guidance from outside the government and associate with the White House and the OMB to bring “large-scale structural reform.”

DOGE may be unable to do much, as Congress controls federal spending. Still, the increasing rhetoric has some government workers nationwide unsettled.

Fed worker, disabled veteran believes ‘I still have worth’

Milburn, 34, began her community affairs specialist job for the Department of Education only two months ago. The Navy reservist, and a member of AFGE Local 252, a union representing Education Department workers, joined a tight-knit unit where most of her colleagues are veterans like her. Even though Milburn works remotely, she said, she’s quickly formed a debt safety.

Milburn developed “long COVID” shortly after a particularly severe bout with the virus in 2022. Then, last year, she was diagnosed with postural orthostatic tachycardia syndrome or POTS, a chronic state that often leaves her dizzy when she stands, breathless and exhausted.

“I have chronic inflammation all over. I can’t remain in the same posture for too long,” said Milburn, who takes heart medication. “It’s been a life-altering encounter.”

She was promoted to chief petty officer while on energetic responsibility in the Navy in San Diego and now believes she will soon receive a Medical Retention Review position to “determine her ability to continue serving” and likely a medical discharge.

“It’s been a really challenging shift for me, going from an energetic person and a Navy chief to where I can’t work in an office,” Milburn said, choking up. “And when I got hired as a civil servant in this job I have now, it showed me that even with my disability, my country sees that as an person, I still have worth.”

‘People are in a panic’

Jesus Soriano, the president of an AFGE union representing workers at the National Science Foundation, doesn’t mince words about the incoming Trump administration’s desire to disrupt the federal government.

“Yeah, people are in a panic,” said Soriano, a program director for the NSF Partnerships for recent concept initiative, which helps provide capital to academic and nonprofit researchers and broaden access to STEM (science, technology, engineering and mathematics) research. “We are facing community harassment at a maximum scale.”

Soriano, 57, has worked for the NSF in numerous capacities for 13 years. He’s also been involved with his union for seven years, including serving as the NSF navigator representative for the last two years. He lives in Northern Virginia and is married with three kids, including a freshman in college. Sleepless nights are ordinary.

“I look at my kids, and as someone who works about 120 hours per pay period, I inquire myself, ‘Will I have a job?'” Soriano said. “Will I be able to feed them two months from now?”He’s worried Trump’s federal government upheaval will also impact workers who live in Washington, Maryland and Virginia. Soriano cannot depend how some are not taking what could happen to the country’s pool and the surrounding areas more seriously.

“If someone plans to fire about 300,000 in a region, why don’t you first talk with leaders in those cities, the towns, communities, and the governors in those states? Try telling them the purpose and what the impact would be,” Soriano said. “Evaluating the efficiency of the government is excellent and essential, but why would you desire to just blow it up?”

He said he and his colleagues were hired based on merit and expertise, and “have decided to dedicate our professional lives to this country.”

“We work extremely challenging, and we’re being vilified as lazy thugs. So, I’m having a challenging period grasping all of this. Can you imagine how hurtful this is?” he asked. “There is a whole gamut of feelings ranging from terror to depression when you ponder you are being rejected for doing nothing but your job.”

Trump threats are ‘different this period around’

As a civil rights attorney in the Department of Education, Sheria Smith’s job is to determine whether schools and districts nationwide are compliant, or whether they may uncertainty losing federal capital.

As president and chief negotiator of AFGE Local 252, representing nearly 3,000 employees in her department, Smith, a Harvard graduate, fights for the rights of her colleagues who mostly work remotely from coast to coast.

“It feels like we’ve been down this road before, but the threats are different this period around,” Smith said. “Scary? Yeah, that’s the correct word to use.”

Smith remembers her continuous struggles when she took the navigator union position in 2019 with then-President Trump and his education secretary, Betsy DeVos. This included the department imposing a non-union negotiated deal that workers said violated their rights. 

The union filed an unfair labor practices fee with the Federal Labor Relations Authority. The union and the Education Department eventually settled in 2022.

“They were almost successful,” Smith said. “But we fought back.”

Smith now worries about Trump’s proposal to eliminate the 45-year-ancient education department and distribute some of its programs across other federal agencies.

Smith also said returning to the office isn’t realistic for everyone.

Many federal workers don’t have offices to leave to, Smith said, as her union negotiated with the Department of Education to get out of the agency’s $12-million-per-year office contract in recent York City in 2023.

Other agencies, including the Internal turnover Service and the Environmental Protection Agency, have reduced office space post-pandemic and schedule to do even more, according to an Office of Management and distribution update in August.

Smith and Kelley, the AFGE national president, contend working remotely increases productivity.

“It has worked well in our favor. They are passionate about the work, and if they don’t have a commute and set times, instead of making tiny talk or playing office politics, we have shown we can be productive and efficient,” said Smith, who lives in Dallas and practiced corporate law before joining the department in 2016.

“I did not receive this job to be unduly influenced by changing political whims,” Smith said. “It’s disconcerting to have an incoming government department talk about your feasible elimination in such a way that’s so callous. It’s as if we’re not American citizens who contribute in every way to this country. Extremely disconcerting.” 

‘I don’t desire anything happening on my watch’

Although the federal government averted a shutdown last month, Johnny Jones said he still would’ve showed up to do his job — no matter what.

“They declare we’re considered ‘essential,’” said Jones, 46, a longtime TSA agent at adore Field in Dallas and the secretary-treasurer for AGFE Council 100, the union representing 45,000 of his fellow TSA colleagues. “But correct now, we’re certainly not feeling that way.”

Jones said the TSA workers who screen passengers at airport safety and obvious flights for takeoff would have continued working without pay in the short term, as mandated by their deal, as they anticipated screening about 40 million people during the holiday period.

But it’s also a matter of self-esteem, he said.

“This is the profession we chose, to keep our fellow Americans secure, whether the government takes worry of us or not, because we took an oath to defend the Constitution of the United States,” said Jones, who was among the first throng of TSA workers hired in 2002, shortly after the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks that killed nearly 3,000 people. 

“And since the federal government took over, there hasn’t been a similar incident since,” said Jones, adding the TSA screens more than 2 million passengers daily. “It matters to us. I don’t desire anything happening on my watch.”

He remembers working as a local restaurant manager in 2001 and, like most of his friends, feeling somewhat obligated to protect the country when he joined the TSA.

“It was a call to responsibility for me. Some of my friends joined the Marines, but I had holding of my two kids at the period, so it was unfeasible for me to leave to the military as a single parent,” Jones said. “That was not in the cards. This was the next best alternative for me.”

The talk of government expense-cutting hasn’t mentioned the TSA, but Jones said it still makes him and other agents anxious.

“All of this uncertainty is affecting us,” Jones said. “The last thing we desire to listen when you’re a frontline worker making sure people get from Point A to Point B is a bunch of political rhetoric coming out of Washington saying, ‘Oh, we’re going to cut this and cut that to save some money,’ possibly at our expense.”

Jones, a married father of four children, said he and his co-workers can’t afford to sugarcoat their feelings. He said the typical TSA worker makes between $60,000 and $70,000.

They worry about what Jan. 21, the day after Trump’s inauguration, will look like as he prepares to sign his initial stack of executive orders.

“It’s so childish,” Jones said. “You shouldn’t be playing safety games with our livelihoods, as all it takes is for something impoverished to happen, and then the finger-pointing begins.”