'Don't have access': Union president details 'unnecessary chaos' sparked by Trump HR email
An email from the Trump administration to federal agencies asking them to explain the work that they did the previous week “sent everybody scrambling,” the president of a federal workers’ union said Monday. Doreen Greenwald, president of the national treasury employees union, told CNN that the chain of command at federal agencies already accounts for what workers are doing each week.
The message, sent by the Office of Personnel Management, had the subject line, “What did you do last week?”
“Please reply to this email with approx. 5 bullets of what you accomplished last week and cc your manager. Please do not send any classified information, links, or attachments,” it reads.
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“It sent everybody scrambling to first figure out, is it even a true email? And second of all, how should employees respond? And so it really caused a lot of unnecessary chaos over the weekend,” Greenwald said.
“Most federal employees don't have access to their government email during the weekend,” she added.
She said that the union has been trying to find answers. “We've been pushing back at agencies to get clarification on what their expectations are, because… OPM does not have direct line authority for these employees, and they're used to addressing the chain of command.”
“The chain of command knows exactly what employees are working on,” she continued. “They are the ones who assign their work duties. They track their leave, they track their time. So this email just caused a lot of confusion for really no purpose, because there are management chains in place to address these things.”
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CNN host Pamela Brown asked about the buyout that the Trump administration had previously offered federal employees.
“So employees continue to be confused by these odd emails that are coming directly to them,” Greenwald said. “What we've heard and what has been reported in the media is that around 2% of the people took that offer. We advised against the offer because it really has no guarantees within it.”
She said that federal workers only make up a tiny amount of the federal budget.
“The federal workforce is less than 1% of the total federal budget, and somehow federal employees have been vilified as the problem behind what aches this country,” she said. “Everybody agrees that there could be efficiencies. They should be working with federal employees to identify areas where things could be improved and save money… they've sent just a shock wave through the entire civil service system. So this is not a matter of saving funds in any way. It's about disrupting the services of government.”
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