Rep. Ro Khanna and local labor union representatives are denouncing the Trump’s administration’s recent efforts to downsize the federal workforce by laying off hundreds of thousands of employees.
Dozens of locals filed into Rancho Middle School’s gym in Milpitas Thursday evening to hear the Silicon Valley Democrat and union leaders express their concerns about the well-being of current and future civil workers while suggesting ways community members can offer their support.
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Khanna also said many federal workers are afraid to publicly share their experience and speak out against the firings, a comment that was similarly echoed by several labor union representatives present at the Town Hall.
“People who are choosing to engage in public service, who have dedicated their lives to public services, fear expressing a political point of view at a town hall because they think the government is going to retaliate against them,” he said. “That is the blatant subversion of the essence of American democracy.”
In the past few months, the administration laid off more than 275,000 federal civil service workers, which is about 12% of the nation’s federal workforce. The figure also includes employee buyouts and planned reductions.
California boasts more than 150,000 federal employees — the largest concentration in any state — but exactly how many are still employed after a flurry of nationwide cuts announced by the Department of Government Efficiency, or DOGE, and other sectors of President Donald Trump’s administration is unknown.
California, along with 19 other states, are suing multiple federal agencies and insisting the administration has illegally fired thousands of federal probationary workers. A federal judge in San Francisco in March even ordered half a dozen federal agencies to immediately reinstate employees fired as part of the Trump administration’s efforts. The Supreme Court halted the order last month.
Jonas Dino, president of the NASA Ames Federal Employees Union, said NASA has been lucky to not be on the “front line of all the attacks.” The union represents more than 1,000 workers at the Ames Research Center in Mountain View.
However, Dino said the agency experienced a loss when many workers opted to be apart of NASA’s Deferred Resignation Program given the current climate. The program allows them to resign or retire while receiving pay and benefits until September.
The mix includes soon-to-be-retirees, brand new hires, and employees who up until now had resisted being “head hunted” by other agencies, Dino said.
“They resist leaving, because they are there for the mission, they are there to serve the American people,” Dino said. “But they say the work conditions have been terrible, morale is low, maybe its time to go.”
Cesar Lara, Director of Workforce Strategy at the California Federation of Labor Unions said employees with decades of experience are getting email saying they are fired, and whole buildings that were once full of workers are now getting emptied. The union represents around 2.3 million workers in over 1,300 local unions.
“All these examples show something needs to happen,” Lara said. “Many of the workers I’ve spoken to don’t want to speak up. Let’s be their voice, let’s tell their stories.”
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