If Being Mission-Critical Is Not Important Enough, What Is?
FDA employees—public-spirited and committed—are the heart of the agency and can proudly point to a lengthy record of accomplishment. Our country has safe food and safe and effective medical products because of their efforts. We are all affected: every American uses FDA-regulated goods and services at least several times each day.
It is said that FDA’s best days are quiet ones—everything runs smoothly, nothing of public concern happens. Given the vastness of the agency’s responsibilities that is an incredibly high standard.
Although the numbers are still uncounted, the agency suffered a brutal and seemingly arbitrary purge of probationary employees over the holiday weekend. Not only were relatively new employees swept away, but also many employees who received competitive promotions in the last two years (a process by which many of them might be considered “the best of the best.”). As extensive as the Reduction in Force (RIF) seems to have been, there are likely to be more attempts to lay off FDA employees.
It is wholly appropriate for the FDA community to deeply mourn its institutional and individual losses.
Employees on probation were an arbitrary target—chosen solely because they are an easier target than employees with more job protections. As far as I can tell, there was no triage based on protecting priority FDA functions and services or assuring needed skills.
For many years past–and presumably for many years to come—a key goal of advocates has been to impress upon Congress, the Executive Branch, and the public that FDA is an extraordinarily valuable agency providing a core function of government. The explicit message: the agency needs more money so it can better fulfill its growing mission. The implicit message: if cuts need to be made in government spending, FDA’s funding should be among the last to be considered.
Government-wide, protecting the more valuable functions of the government (agencies, service and people) formed no apparent part of the employee reductions[1].
It may be crazy to do a RIF at FDA when laid-off employees are mission-critical to medical advances and food safety and play a key role in national and global commerce. But that’s no crazier than cutting FAA staff who assure safe air travel after three incidents in the last few weeks (here), or probationary FBI agents (here), or cutting (since rescinded) the jobs of personnel who maintain nuclear safety and security (here). USDA work that relates to Avian Flu also experienced frontline cutbacks (here) that are inexplicable.
If any of these agencies were told: next year you will have to function with fewer employees….it would be awful, but foreknowledge and flexibility would certainly help the agency lessen the damage by prioritizing mission-critical activities.
In assessing the current situation, I am left with an obvious question that appears to have no immediate answer: if being mission-critical is not valuable enough to save an employee, service, or program, what is?
INFORMATION FOR FDA EMPLOYEES from the FDA Alumni Association:
New resource page tailored to the needs of FDAers: Today the FDAAlumniAssociation posted a reference page outlining information sources that FDA staff might find helpful during this time of transition. The reference page is a work in progress, so if there are additional links you believe would be helpful that we should consider adding, please contact FDAAA. A huge shout out to the EPAAlumniAssociation that permitted us to poach some of their information sources. If you are planning to leave the agency or choosing to stay and would enjoy seeing familiar faces, please consider joining FDAAA. We appreciate you! https://lnkd.in/eR3bsQSA
According to one article I read, the White House has claimed that the government-wide RIF followed priorities and chose people whose jobs were less important. The article continued with a quote from a third party to the effect: if that is the case, then the people making the decisions had no understanding of the jobs people were performing.
