‘Shock across the system’: How government layoffs are impacting Philadelphia’s federal workforce

At the Internal Revenue Service office at 30th and Market Streets, employees provide taxpayers services, like taking their calls to answer questions.

Answering those calls in a timely manner can be a struggle, said Alex Jay Berman, executive vice president of National Treasury Employees Union Chapter 71, which represents over 3,600 IRS employees at that location. Sometimes callers have to wait hours.

“That’s the thing we want to avoid. We want to make it so that you can reach us,” Berman said, noting that wait times are an issue at other locations, too.

But staffing reductions, as the Trump administration fires federal workers around the country, could add to the challenge.

Amid a barrage of layoffs across federal agencies in the last week, word of Philadelphia-area federal workers being terminated has trickled through unions and professional networks.

But the full impact locally remains unclear and fluid.

As of Tuesday, local layoffs included at least one employee of the General Services Administration, two at the Department of Veterans Affairs, and two at the U.S. the Department of Agriculture, according to union representatives.

At least three employees at the Environmental Protection Agency’s Region 3, which includes Pennsylvania and Delaware, are also among those recently fired, a union representative said.

And over the weekend, two probationary employees were terminated at Independence National Historical Park, which was already operating with at least 30 unfilled openings.

Across the U.S., thousands of federal workers have been laid off in recent days. Some 3,400 employees at the Forest Service, 2,000 at the Energy Department, and over 1,000 at the Department of Veterans Affairs have been let go, the Wall Street Journal reported last week.

Hundreds of employees at the Federal Aviation Administration are being laid off, as well as roughly 73 employees at the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, and more than 100 at the General Services Administration, according to media reports.

“There’s a ton of shock across the system, which I think was the point with this,” said Philip Glover, national vice president for the American Federation of Government Employees (AFGE) District 3. “People are wondering if they’re next, obviously. Even though they’re not probationary, do they get called in and told, ‘we’re laying you off?’”

AFGE represents around 9,400 federal workers in and near Philadelphia, among roughly 800,000 nationally and abroad. As Glover tried to determine the number of local layoffs Monday, federal offices were closed for Presidents’ Day and protesters across the country joined demonstrations against President Donald Trump and Elon Musk.

Federal workers and supporters are also planning to protest Wednesday in Philadelphia near Independence National Historical Park as part of a national day of action with the Federal Unionists Network.

U.S. Rep. Madeleine Dean (D., Pa.), who represents Montgomery and Berks Counties, said top administrators at the VA medical centers in Philadelphia and Coatesville have contacted her with “a feeling of grave concern.” They’ve told her clinicians at the hospital are concerned about veterans’ physical and mental health, Dean said. In an interview Tuesday, she said she does not know the exact number of people who have been laid off at these centers.

“People are so afraid,” said Karen Ford-Woods, a retired VA employee and president of AFGE Local 1793, which represents VA hospital employees, including EMS workers and direct patient care providers. “You’re talking about people who come to an organization that represents itself as being one of the best places to work, and you think that you are going to have a career, you work and you get a pension.”

Ford-Woods said as of last week she knows of two nonbargaining unit VA employees laid off, one of which was a facilities worker.

The FAA declined to comment on whether workers at the Philadelphia International Airport were affected by the hundreds of FAA layoffs.

“The FAA continues to hire and onboard air traffic controllers and safety professionals, including mechanics and others who support them,” a U.S. Department of Transportation spokesperson said via email. “The agency has retained employees who perform safety critical functions.”

At the EPA, even before the recent layoffs, 14 Region 3 employees conducting environmental justice work were put on leave earlier this month, according to Brad Starnes, president of AFGE’s Local 3631.

Across the U.S., the EPA said this month it placed 171 employees on leave who were part of Environmental Justice or the EPA’s DEI programs.

“They are getting paid, but they have no access to the EPA network, and they’re just waiting for the next whatever comes afterward,” said Starnes, who noted some of those placed on leave are union members.

Most of the recent federal cuts have focused on probationary employees, who have been in their position for typically less than a year.

These workers generally check in periodically with their supervisors for work performance evaluations, Glover said.

“Some of these people have gotten all the way up to their last quarterly [check-in with their supervisor] telling them they’re doing great, they’re doing fine, they’re going to be kept,” Glover said. “And then this administration comes in and fires them.”

The union is looking into appeals options for these employees, including with the U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC). Trump has already begun to reshape the commission, firing two Democratic commissioners in January.

“People seem to be forgetting why [these probationary employees] were hired. They were hired to replace workers that were leaving,” Glover said. “It’s turnover. It’s not that they’re not doing their job.”