Laid-off employees at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention are asking Congress to procure details from the Trump administration on the extent of agency firings and rationale for targeting certain departments.
Roughly 1,300 CDC employees were laid off Friday as part of the shutdown-related reduction in force, according to data compiled by the CDC workers’ union, with about half of them reinstated by Monday.
The chaotic layoffs have crippled America’s public health agency, workers say, leaving them in the dark as the administration has provided little additional detail. And while President Donald Trump had said that layoffs would be “Democrat oriented,” employees are puzzled how the chronic-disease staff, the National Center for Health Statistics and the agency’s library fit that mold.
