In a Congressional hearing Thursday, Congressman Randy Forbes (R-VA) warned of the dire consequences facing the Department of Defense and its employees if $56.7 billion in scheduled sequestration cuts were to be made on January 2nd. In total, Forbes estimates 89,000 civilian jobs will be lost in the RIF if Congress cannot come to a separate agreement to offset the cuts.
Acting Assistant Secretary of Defense for Readiness and Force Management Frederick Vollrath told the subcommittee that RIF notices would be dispensed as early as September. According to the Federal Times, the Department must notify Congress of any layoffs 45 days before officially distributing employees’ 60 days’ notice of the pending RIF. With sequestration set to take effect on January 2, this means pink slips will sit in employees hands as early as September 18th – less than two months from today.
As NFFE reported last week, another $57 billion in sequestration cuts will have an even greater impact at other federal agencies, costing an estimated 229,000 jobs through 2013.
“If these cuts are allowed to gut agencies across government, 2013 will make the previous years’ pay freezes look like child’s play,” said NFFE Legislative Director Randy Erwin. “We can’t allow our public service to be gutted overnight simply because Congress can’t come together to reach a sensible and fair deficit reduction agreement. Federal employees throughout government need to stand up and let their public officials know that slashing hundreds of thousands of federal jobs is unacceptable.”
NFFE is urging all federal employees to call their members of Congress and tell them that allowing sequestration to cut hundreds of thousands of jobs is unacceptable. You can reach them by using the Capitol Switchboard: (202) 224-3121.