The EPA’s union chief said Wednesday that employees at the agency are continuing with their jobs, despite feeling battered and beaten by President Donald Trump.
John O’Grady, president of the American Federation of Government Employees Council 238, told reporters that workers are “pretty sick and tired of being beat up as federal employees.” They are pressing on, though, because they are dedicated to their jobs, O’Grady added.
O’Grady said that he thinks he can thwart administrator Scott Pruitt’s mission to buy out scores of employee contracts. The EPA set aside $12 million to buy out employees to reshape its workforce, The Washington Post reported in May. O’Grady railed against Pruitt’s mission to trim the agency.
“This idea that you can do more with less,” he said, referring to Pruitt’s campaign, “well excuse me — you can’t. We’re at the point where we’re at bare bones, we can’t do more for less.”
The president’s budget called for a 25 percent reduction to the agency’s workforce and a 31 percent cut to the agency’s budget, which would reduce the EPA’s 15,000-employee workforce by more than 3,000 positions. The EPA offered cash buyouts of up to $25,000 to employees in exchange for their retirement.
The EPA has a long history of protecting employees from being terminated for poor behavior.
Senior EPA officials in 2015, for instance, largely ignored complaints from 16 women, mostly employees, that accused one agency official of sexual harassment. The employee received a promotion, despite the complaints.
The Office of the Inspector General also held a hearing in 2016 showing that the EPA paid a registered sex offender to retire rather than terminating his employment.
The sex offender was fired in 2014 for violating his probation, but the Merit Systems Protection Board reinstated him, according to EPA inspector general records. The employee was paid $55,000 to resign in 2015.
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