President Trump: Don’t fire, deny pay to federal food safety workers

With Congress gridlocked over whether to extend critical subsidies for health insurance, the government is now 10 days into a shutdown. This means that Congressionally funded services not deemed "essential" because they don't prevent "imminent threats" to human life or property have been frozen.

The White House circulated a memo earlier this year to federal agency leadership directing them to consider mass firings of federal workers whose funding has lapsed during a shutdown. This unprecedented move would mean any federal worker whose position is funded through appropriations could be at risk of losing their job if targeted by the administration. Another draft memo reportedly circulated by the White House advised that back pay would not be required for furloughed federal workers under current law.

Unfortunately, many critical workers, including some food safety inspectors at the Food and Drug Administration, as well as food additive safety reviewers and the experts who develop safety and nutrition regulations, are subject to furlough under the current shutdown. This is because their work, while vital to public health and safety, is not directed at "imminent threats" to human life or property, the standard needed to avoid a furlough.

Running the federal government using only workers designated as "essential" is like running a hospital using only emergency room staff: many critical services are not being carried out.

The FDA is already struggling to meet its food safety inspection targets, having never recovered from backlogs created during the 2018 shutdown and COVID-19 inspection pause. A key barrier has been the inability to recruit and retain inspectors; FDA's inspectorate was already 10 percent understaffed prior to Trump taking office. The recent hiring freeze and departures encouraged by the Trump Administration as a means of cost-cutting and reducing the size of government have meant that nearly 20 percent of human food inspection positions are now vacant, with gaps even higher for infant formula inspection, where 40 percent of positions remain unfilled.

If the White House moves forward with threats to punish federal workers and applies them to those working on food safety and other critical issues, it would contribute to additional devastating losses for this program as inspectors are fired or leave due to poor conditions, impairing the government's ability to protect public health and safety on an ongoing basis.

President Trump should not move forward with these reckless proposals.

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Tags

• Trump
• Food and Drug Administration

Topics

• Government Accountability
• Food Safety