ATLANTA – At least 600 employees at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention were terminated this week, according to reporting by the Associated Press.
What we know:
The notices went out this week and many people have not yet received them, according to the American Federation of Government Employees, which represents more than 2,000 dues-paying members at CDC.
The U.S. Department of Health and Human Services on Wednesday did not offer details on the layoffs and referred an AP reporter to a March statement that said restructuring and downsizing were intended to make health agencies more responsive and efficient.
The AP reports the permanent cuts include about 100 people who worked in violence prevention. “There are nationally and internationally recognized experts that will be impossible to replace,” said Tom Simon, the retired senior director for scientific programs at the CDC’s Division of Violence Prevention.
It’s been almost two weeks since an active shooter hit the CDC buildings in Atlanta almost 200 times. “The irony is devastating: The very experts trained to understand, interrupt and prevent this kind of violence were among those whose jobs were eliminated,” some of the affected employees wrote on a blog post last week.
Other affected projects included work to prevent rape, child abuse and teen dating violence. The laid-off staff included people who have helped other countries to track violence against children — an effort that helped give rise to an international conference in November at which countries talked about setting violence-reduction goals.
The backstory:
On April 1, the HHS officials sent layoff notices to thousands of employees at the CDC and other federal health agencies, part of a sweeping overhaul designed to vastly shrink the agencies responsible for protecting and promoting Americans’ health.
Many have been on administrative leave since then — paid but not allowed to work — as lawsuits played out.
A federal judge in Rhode Island last week issued a preliminary ruling that protected employees in several parts of the CDC, including groups dealing with smoking, reproductive health, environmental health, workplace safety, birth defects and sexually transmitted diseases, according to the AP. But the ruling did not protect other CDC employees, and layoffs are being finalized across other parts of the agency, including in the freedom of information office. The terminations were effective as of Monday, employees were told.
The Source: Information in this article came from the Associated Press.
