{"id":268044,"date":"2025-10-01T02:27:20","date_gmt":"2025-10-01T02:27:20","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/268044\/"},"modified":"2025-10-01T02:27:20","modified_gmt":"2025-10-01T02:27:20","slug":"under-threat-of-rifs-and-a-government-shutdown-some-federal-employees-not-buying-it","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/268044\/","title":{"rendered":"Under threat of RIFs and a government shutdown, some federal employees \u2018not buying it\u2019"},"content":{"rendered":"

On the eve of the deadline for a government shutdown, a crowd of current and former federal employees convened outside the Supreme Court in downtown Washington, D.C., to make their voices heard.<\/p>\n

The Monday evening press conference, led by a grassroots group of federal employees who call themselves the Civil Servants Coalition, urged Senate Democrats to vote down the GOP\u2019s stopgap funding measure \u2014 unless it includes stipulations to mitigate some impacts of the Trump administration this year.<\/p>\n

Several current federal employees, speaking in their personal capacity, described the \u201cterrible toll\u201d the Trump administration has imposed on the federal workforce over the last several months.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe have all had our lives turned upside down by this administration,\u201d Charlotte Slaiman, an anti-trust lawyer at the Federal Trade Commission, told the crowd. \u201cWhen I saw the [Office of Management and Budget] memo threatening to fire more federal workers if Congress didn\u2019t agree to their budget, I was scared \u2026 [But] we realized Donald Trump and Russell Vought want us to be scared.\u201d<\/p>\n

]]><\/p>\n

\u201cThis is just a political stunt, and we\u2019re not buying it,\u201d Slaiman added, also telling Democrats, \u201cDo not give up for us. Fight for us.\u201d<\/p>\n

Alexis Goldstein, a member of the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau\u2019s chapter of the National Treasury Employees Union, similarly urged Democrats to push back against the Trump administration.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe way you stand up to a bully is not to cave to the bully. The way you stand up to the bully is to say no to the bully,\u201d Goldstein said. \u201cSo if you say no, we will have your backs.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"\"Alexis Goldstein, a member of the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau\u2019s chapter of the National Treasury Employees Union, speaks at a press conference outside the Supreme Court on Monday. Goldstein, in her personal capacity, joined several federal colleagues in urging Democrats to \u201csay no to the bully.\u201d The event, organized by the Civil Servants Coalition, criticized the Trump administration\u2019s federal workforce overhauls this year. (Photo by Drew Friedman, Federal News Network)<\/p>\n

Sens. Chris Van Hollen (D-Md.) and Angela Alsobrooks (D-Md.), as well as Reps. Glenn Ivey (D-Md.) and Delia Ramirez (D-Ill.) all spoke at the employee-led event, to both blast the Trump administration\u2019s actions and express support for federal civil servants.<\/p>\n

\u201cThank all of you for what you do for the American people, and thank you for being here to express your views,\u201d Van Hollen told employees gathered at Monday\u2019s conference.<\/p>\n

The Maryland senator also criticized and questioned the legality of the message last week from OMB telling agencies<\/a> to conduct further reductions in force in the event of a government shutdown. Guidance from the Office of Personnel Management subsequently green-lit agencies<\/a> to work on RIFs both leading up to and during a potential shutdown. OPM stated that all RIF-related work should be considered \u201cexcepted activities\u201d for the purposes of a government shutdown.<\/p>\n

\u201cThey certainly should not be excepted activities in a shutdown, but we are dealing with a lawless administration,\u201d Van Hollen said.<\/p>\n

]]><\/p>\n

Paul Osadebe, a now former Department of Housing and Urban Development employee, who said he was fired this week after filing a whistleblower complaint, saw OMB\u2019s memo as more of the same from the Trump administration.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe were already being shut down. We were already not being allowed to do our jobs. We were already being fired. We were already being retaliated against,\u201d Osadebe told Federal News Network at the press conference.<\/p>\n

Despite the largely negative impacts a funding lapse would have, Osadebe said he saw somewhat of a silver lining in the possibility of a government shutdown as well.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s unfortunate that that would be the way to get there, if that\u2019s the way that it happens,\u201d Osadebe said. \u201cBut it is an opportunity for people to stop and see that what\u2019s happening right now is not normal.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cWe don\u2019t want to shut down \u2014 we want a budget that keeps the government working. But we also don\u2019t want to lie down,\u201d added Sarah Kobrin, an employee at the National Cancer Institute who spoke to Federal News Network in her personal capacity.<\/p>\n

Within the Civil Servants Coalition, Kobrin described a broad range of comfort levels from federal employees, in how willing they are to speak out about what they have experienced this year.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe\u2019re on the inside. We can see what\u2019s happening. We\u2019re watching the destruction [that is] fully underway,\u201d Kobrin said. \u201cPeople keep asking me, \u2018Are you scared?\u2019 But I\u2019ve been scared for nine months. This just isn\u2019t any worse. In fact, it\u2019s an opportunity for us to speak out more clearly.\u201d<\/p>\n

If you would like to contact this reporter about recent changes in the federal government, please email drew.friedman@federalnewsnetwork.com<\/a>\u00a0or reach out on Signal at drewfriedman.11<\/strong><\/p>\n

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\n \u00a9\u00a02025 Federal News Network. All rights reserved. This website is not intended for users located within the European Economic Area.\n <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"On the eve of the deadline for a government shutdown, a crowd of current and former federal employees…\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":268045,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[139631,139632,139633,28425,139634,19995,121270,79285,69,41002,139635,51,133613,50,26753,139636,18464,139637,52],"class_list":{"0":"post-268044","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-news","8":"tag-alexis-goldstein","9":"tag-angela-alsobrooks","10":"tag-charlotte-slaiman","11":"tag-chris-van-hollen","12":"tag-civil-servants-coalition","13":"tag-consumer-financial-protection-bureau","14":"tag-delia-ramirez","15":"tag-department-of-housing-and-urban-development","16":"tag-donald-trump","17":"tag-federal-trade-commission","18":"tag-glenn-ivey","19":"tag-headlines","20":"tag-national-treasury-employees-union","21":"tag-news","22":"tag-office-of-personnel-management","23":"tag-paul-osadebe","24":"tag-russell-vought","25":"tag-sarah-kobrin","26":"tag-top-stories"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@us\/115296550828694640","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/268044","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=268044"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/268044\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/268045"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=268044"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=268044"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=268044"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}