EPA reverses some layoffs at Chicago’s Region 5 office

Days after hundreds of Environmental Protection Agency employees were fired, several workers at Chicago’s EPA office had their terminations rescinded.

On Friday, EPA sent termination notices to 388 probationary employees, including dozens at EPA’s Region 5 office in Chicago. Yet, Nicole Cantello, president of the American Federation of Government Employees Local 704, which includes workers in EPA Region 5, told Planet Detroit five probationary employees who were part of a program for recent college graduates had their firings rescinded on Wednesday.

However, more layoffs at the agency are likely given President Donald Trump’s focus on undermining environmental regulation and efforts to increase the number of employees who can be easily fired, according to Jeremy Symons, senior advisor at the Environmental Protection Network, a group of former EPA staffers and political appointees.

Last week’s firings coincided with a surge in AFGE membership. They were followed by demonstrations in Detroit, Chicago and other cities in which protestors expressed concern that EPA layoffs and funding cuts could impact environmental enforcement, emergency response and climate action. 

EPA workers have warned cutbacks at the Region 5 office, including the Region 5 Emergency Response Branch office in Ann Arbor, could jeopardize disaster response in Michigan and the enforcement of air quality, drinking water, and hazardous waste rules.

Friday’s layoffs targeted the Region 5 Office of General Counsel, which includes prosecutors who help enforce existing air and water quality rules in Michigan and other Midwestern states, Cantello said.

The EPA said the layoffs were part of the Trump administration’s efforts to “create a more effective and efficient federal government.”

Zealan Hoover, EPA’s former implementation director, said on a press call last week that the administration is not carrying out its efforts to improve efficiency in good faith, noting that many of those fired were audit and grant specialists who prevent waste, fraud and abuse.

“This is not an efficiency operation,” he said. “This is taking an axe to agencies that this administration has long attempted to defund through congressional action and has never had the votes to defund in Congress.”

The White House didn’t respond to Planet Detroit’s request for comment on the firings of EPA staff, and the EPA declined to comment.

EPA layoffs advance Trump administration’s deregulatory agenda

It’s unclear what exactly prompted the EPA to reverse some firings in Region 5. But the move coincides with efforts to rehire employees at the National Nuclear Security Administration and U.S. Department of Agriculture, following concerns that the firings could jeopardize national security and response to the H5N1 bird flu outbreak.

Cantello said that the rehiring of Region 5 employees came immediately after a large protest over the firings in Chicago and union efforts to reach out to the press and lawmakers.

Symons, with EPN, said the rescissions “speak to how ill thought out and chaotic” the Trump administration’s actions have been. But he added that more EPA firings were likely.

“This is just the beginning of Trump’s plans to tear down EPA,” he said, noting that Trump’s   Office of Management and Budget head had previously said he wanted to put EPA workers “in trauma.”

The layoffs at the Region 5 Office of General Counsel also align with the administration’s goal of making it more difficult to enforce laws under the Clean Air Act and Clean Water Act, Symons said.

He said the administration could also move to fire employees under Schedule F, now called Schedule Policy/Career, which could make it easier to dismiss employees for political reasons. The U.S. Office of Personnel Management issued guidance for implementing Schedule F at the end of January.

Union membership surges as workers seek to push back on firings

Brian Kelly, vice president for AFGE Local 704, who is helping Los Angeles residents recover from the Eaton Fire, told Planet Detroit that the layoff threat has sparked angst and fear among those he is working with, but also a surge in union membership.

“It’s sort of surreal,” he said. “You’re out here doing this critically important job while at the same time your colleagues are being fired.”

He said that AFGE has been providing workers with information, organizing protests and contacting lawmakers. 

“I think people are joining the union…because they know that the union is the only one that is pushing back against these firings,” he said,

On a call with union members last week, Marie Owens Powell, president of AFGE Council 238, representing approximately 8,000 EPA workers, said the union had increased its membership by 2,000 over the past two years, with 1,000 joining in the last six months.

Union efforts add to a broader pushback that Symons expects to build as citizens realize how the administration’s cuts could directly impact their lives, noting the widespread concern about the firings of federal workers who help secure nuclear weapons and respond to avian flu.

“The more people hear about what’s being sacrificed for a piece of political symbolism, the more backlash there will be,” he said.

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