At least 600 CDC employees being terminated in US, union says

The sackings travel arsenic Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F Kennedy Jr pushes to importantly downsize department.

At slightest 600 employees of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) successful the United States are receiving imperishable termination notices successful the aftermath of a caller tribunal determination that protected immoderate CDC employees from layoffs but not others.

The notices went retired this week, and galore radical person not yet received them, according to the American Federation of Government Employees (AFGE), which represents much than 2,000 dues-paying members astatine CDC.

The CDC played a important relation successful gathering information and mounting wellness argumentation during the COVID-19 pandemic.

The terminations travel months aft Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) Secretary Robert F Kennedy Jr announced efforts to fto spell of 20,000 employees, downsizing the section by much than 20 percent.

AFGE officials said they are alert of astatine slightest 600 employees being cut.

But “due to a staggering deficiency of transparency from HHS”, the national hasn’t received ceremonial notices astir who is being laid off, the federation said successful a connection connected Wednesday.

The imperishable cuts see astir 100 radical who worked successful unit prevention. Some employees noted that those cuts came little than 2 weeks aft a antheral fired astatine slightest 180 bullets into the CDC’s campus and killed a constabulary officer.

“The irony is devastating: The precise experts trained to understand, interrupt and forestall this benignant of unit were among those whose jobs were eliminated,” immoderate of the affected employees wrote successful a blog station past week.

Source:

Al Jazeera, The Associated Press