September 11, 2015
By John Quinn, LaborPress USA
Washington, DC – The American Federation of Government Employees, which represents more than 250,000 civilian employees within the Department of Defense, is strongly opposed to the Pentagon's plan to slash staffing by 25%.
Ongoing meetings with legislators and DoD officials is continuing.
"We strongly oppose the Department of Defense's plan to slash its headquarters funding by 25 percent through fiscal 2020," AFGE National President J. David Cox Sr. said. "These arbitrary staffing cuts will affect many of our members who are considered headquarters employees, while likely failing to enforce cuts in the more expensive contractor workforce in headquarters."
Across-the-board staffing cuts has proven to be problematic and costly in the long run for both companies and government operations. Indiscriminate downsizing causes great harm to organizations and some operations never recover. The Army is planning to slash the civilian workforce by 30% at 30 installations nationwide.
"Who will perform the work when a fourth or more of the workforce is obliterated? If DoD is intent on slashing personnel, then it needs to start deciding what work simply cannot be performed any longer and cut staff accordingly," Cox said. "If cutting expenses is the number one priority, then the first place DoD should target is the vast bureaucracy of contractor personnel who cost more than federal workers and are less accountable to taxpayers."
