The Secretary Of Transportation Got Rid Of Too Many Workers, And Now He Needs Them Back

If you’re a business owner who hates not being allowed to hurt your customers or workers to save a little money in the short term, you’re probably a big fan of Republicans systematically dimantling the country regulatory infrastructure. If you’re a person who would prefer not to die a completely preventable death, however, the last three months might be making you a little nervous. Elon Musk may not have found much fraud, but he did help get rid of a lot of federal employees. Now, though, the Department of Transportation has realized it needs many of those workers back, Politico reports.

Apparently, when Secretary of Transportation Sean Duffy began pressuring DOT employees to accept a so-called “deferred resignation” deal to get around the laws that protect those workers from being randomly fired, too many of them said, “Forget this,” and accepted. In total, about 4,700 DOT employees reportedly decided to take the deferred resignation, which works out to about 9% of the department’s 55,000 employees. Just a reminder; about 45,000 of those 55,000 work for the Federal Aviation Administration doing things like making sure planes don’t fall out of the sky.

The Republican plan to gut the DOT didn’t happen all at once. Initially, they fired any workers who had been in their positions for less than a year, since those workers had fewer legal protections. Those who had been there longer than a year were then pressured to accept a deferred resignation deal, where they would no longer work but still get paid for a while. That got rid of about 2,000 workers, although a judge later found that 700 of them had been illegally fired and forced the department to reinstate them. 

Beginning April 1, the DOT started pressuring more workers to resign by April 7. That second round of deferred resignation offers caused far more workers to leave the DOT, and now, many of those who accepted the deal are reportedly being asked to reconsider. “It’s a s*it show, honestly. I feel for HR because this is a mess they didn’t create,” one unnamed DOT employee told Politico. 

Don’t worry, though. A spokesperson for the department told Politico that gutting the department “is just one part of our effort to make DOT more efficient and accountable to the taxpayer,” and promised, “Our teams are layered with redundancies to ensure efficiency initiatives will not compromise safety.” The number of people who have died in plane crashes this year might beg to differ, but we’re sure you can totally trust the former reality show contestant currently running the DOT.