Unions representing federal workers described devastating job losses because of cuts to the federal government under the guidance of Department of Government Efficiency and tech billionaire Elon Musk.
The union representatives were at the state Capitol for a press conference on Thursday afternoon.
“We cannot continue to disrupt services in such a willy-nilly fashion and expect the government to function properly,” said Dan Doyle, vice president of American Federation of Government Employees Local 1995 vice president and, also, vice president of the West Virginia AFL-CIO.
Several of the federal cuts have hit West Virginia.
Nearly 200 union workers at the National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health in Morgantown NIOSH were notified they are losing their jobs as part of 10,000 job cuts in the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services. Additional non-union administrative positions are being cut too.
Dozens of workers at a longstanding federal employer in Parkersburg, the Bureau of Fiscal Service, were notified weeks ago that they would be losing their jobs, although many are returning to work after a court ruling.
Cuts have also disrupted employment at Department of Veterans Affairs locations in places like West Virginia.
Senator Shelley Moore Capito, speaking during a briefing with reporters today, addressed the layoffs at NIOSH in Morgantown.
“I am extremely concerned about this,” said Capito, R-W.Va., who went on to say she is talking to Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr., whose agency is behind thousands of federal job cuts, including hundreds in Morgantown.
“I understand getting rid of duplications and overextensions and bloat, but in this case I have strong disagreements with the administration.”
One of the reporters on the call with Capito, Jaime Baker of WTOV, asked the senator for her perception of whether calls to Trump administration officials would have any effect on reconsideration of job cuts.
“I’m very concerned about that. I’m concerned about what their jobs are and what they do and how they keep our miner safety and look at our fire equipment to make sure our firemen are safe when they’re working in dangerous situations,” Capito responded.
“So I’m hoping to look for a brighter outlook from him,” she said, referring to Kennedy, “that you have cut into the bone here with an essential service for workplace safety. And that would mean, I would hope that he would not just bring the functions back but the people who perform the functions are as important as the functions of the office are.”
The senator concluded by saying, “I know it’s a lot of uncertainty. I certainly feel that, and we’ve heard from quite a few people.”
The job cuts have taken place like a chainsaw rather than strategically, said Bryan Hunt from the American Federation of Government Employees.
“It should be done deliberately if you’re going to do it. And I’m not naive. I know we’re going to do it, we need to be deliberate about it and do it, be specific, know what you’re doing.”
Hunt, who is the president of AFGE Local 2384 at the Louis A. Johnson VA Medical Center in Clarksburg, appeared on MetroNews’ “Talkline.”
“These aren’t being made locally. The very thing that they claim to want to fight, the bureaucracy — that’s who they’re giving the keys to and letting decide who goes, who comes and goes,” he said.
“That’s the nature of it, you know, the Clarksburg VA doesn’t get to decide what they want to do. Someone in D.C. gets decided what the Clarksburg VA needs to do. And some would say there’s no rhyme or reason to it.”
The union representatives took note of federal agencies throughout West Virginia, including six federal prison facilities in Alderson, Beckley, Glenville, Hazelton, Welch, and Morgantown; Veterans Affairs hospitals in Beckley, Huntington, Clarksburg and Martinsburg; at least four Mine Safety and Health Administration locations; and federal offices in Charleston, Parkersburg, Clarksburg, Martinsburg, Wheeling, Beckley, Romney and Ripley.
West Virginia has more than 17,000 employees at federal agencies or offices located in the state, according to the Congressional Research Service, using data from the Office of Personnel Management. The state location in those statistics reflects duty station, not place of residence.
That report also breaks down the number of federal employees who live in West Virginia by congressional district. Those numbers from the U.S. Census Bureau’s American Community Survey are larger because it reflects federal workers who live in West Virginia but who may report to jobs in the state or elsewhere.
Those numbers show 22,977 federal workers residing in West Virginia congressional District 2, which includes northern counties, and 10,345 federal workers in District 1, which is southern counties.
Doyle, the AFL-CIO vice president, said it’s hard to get a handle on the number of West Virginia workers being affected because agencies are typically not releasing that kind of information.
“It’s very difficult to get information,” he said. “In fact, many of them are under a gag order not to talk to anyone outside of the government, and so that’s that’s making it hard for us to get that.”
In addition to the thousands of federal employees with jobs on the line in West Virginia, Doyle took note of employees of federal contractors who live in the state — along with uncertainty over federal grants.
“So it could be catastrophic.”