It turns out thousands of federal employees will be paid for a month of not working after being fired by Elon Musk’s Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE), due to legal actions challenging the firings, and it appears some employees will continue to do no work for an indefinite period while remaining on payrolls.
A return-to-work letter sent Monday to Jonathan Weaver, a Juneau resident fired from the U.S. Department of Transportation on Feb. 15, states that action is being rescinded and he will be placed on active duty again as of Thursday, with full back pay for the period he was inactive. However, he said Monday that doesn’t necessary mean work at the office will return to normal.
“They also told me they shipped our ID cards and our laptops back to Washington, D.C., so I kind of doubt that they’re going to be back by Thursday,” he said.
Meanwhile, a somewhat similar notice sent last week to fired U.S. Department of Agriculture employees — including U.S. Forest Service workers in Juneau — states only that they will be paid since the date of their dismissal, without specific dates of when to return to work. Isabel Dziak, among a group of fired employees at the Mendenhall Glacier Visitor Center whose reinstatement was ordered by an independent federal board March 5, said Monday she has received no specific return-to-work orders yet.
U.S. Sen. Lisa Murkowski, R-Alaska, stopped by the visitor center on Monday to talk to officials about the impacts of the firings. In a video posted on her official Facebook page, she noted the center has only a single employee with less than a month before the first cruise ship of the season arrives.
“That first ship will be carrying about 4,000 visitors coming here,” she said. “This is the most popular visitors’ trip here in Juneau, so I’m having a conversation with people about those DOGE cuts and what they mean on the ground.”
U.S. Sen. Lisa Murkowski (R-Alaska) discusses the impacts of mass federal employee firings at the Mendenhall Glacier Visitor Center on Monday. (Screenshot from video from Lisa Murkowski’s official Facebook page)
Murkowski’s visit to Juneau will continue Tuesday when she is scheduled to give an annual address to a joint session of the Alaska Legislature.
The USDA, in an announcement last Tuesday, stated back pay is being provided to the affected employees and they returned to paid status as of last Wednesday.
“The Department will place all terminated probationary employees in pay status and provide each with back pay, from the date of termination,” the statement notes. “The Department will work quickly to develop a phased plan for return-to-duty, and while those plans materialize, all probationary employees will be paid.”
Widespread news reports say USDA employees in other states are similarly uncertain about their work status, as are employees at some other agencies such as the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development.
Weaver said he was fired from his job as an area engineer on Feb. 15, about 11 months after he started the DOT position. Three other probationary workers were also fired from what he believes was an 18-person full-time office in Juneau. He said he has found another job with private company, but at present is planning to return to his DOT position in order to ensure he doesn’t lose his back pay and accumulated benefits.
He also — before his firing — had scheduled a vacation with plans to depart Thursday night, but isn’t sure how that might be disrupted by the events of the past month.
More than 21,000 probationary federal employees — generally hired or promoted during the past year, and thus lacking civil service protections, have been fired by the Trump administration since Feb. 13, according to a tally by The New York Times updated last Wednesday.
Courts and a federal agency ruling have largely halted and/or reversed those efforts, although administration officials are in the process of carrying out a much larger downsizing. So far that has included gutting agencies such as the United States Agency for International Development (USAID) and U.S. Agency for Global Media (the parent company of Voice of America), and half of the U.S. Department of Education.
• Contact Mark Sabbatini at mark.sabbatini@juneauempire.com or (907) 957-2306.
