‘Prelude to privatization:’ Social Security confirms the objectives of reduction of the workforce, it continues to obtain offices

The Social Security Administration in recent days has initiated a lot of actions aimed at decimting their workforce and that the Democrats warn are an effort to sabotage the agency and prepare to privatize their functions.

After an abrupt eruption Higher leaders withdrawals Throughout the agency last week, the agency confirmed Friday that it is looking to throw 7,000 employees, which would reduce its workforce to 50,000 people. The past fall, the agency reached a minimum of 50 years after Congress Republicans refused to accept adding the agency’s funds to take into account fixed cost increases as part of a continuous resolution to keep agencies open.

With that came an announcement that the agency will consolidate its current 10 regional offices to four, as well as reorganize the headquarters. And Elon Musk’s Doge agents have canceled leases for 45 field offices throughout the country, as well as the Office of Hearing Operations in White Plains, NY

And although the agency’s first line workforce had previously been saved from most early workforce initiatives of the Trump Administration, including the Deferred Resignation Program, early retirement offers and the purge of recently contracted federal workers, promoted or transferred, Friday’s leadership said that all agency employees are eligible for the voluntary retirement authority or voluntary retirement author of voluntary separation, provided they have served enough time to qualify.

In addition to the confusion, an advertisement of the entire agency was announced on Monday that all employees of the unit who are not bargaging must stop teleworking and travel five days a week from Wednesday.

“We understand that this transition will require an adjustment to the work of employees/life arrangements,” the agency wrote. “Supervisors must be liberal with the approval of the license during the next four weeks to accommodate the changes.”

In a message of rambling to employees obtained by Government ExecutiveThe interim commissioner Leland Dudek suggested that the rapid changes were actually the fault of the previous administration.

“The elections have consequences,” he wrote. “President Biden dismissed Andrew Saul, fundamentally altering the independence of Social Security Administration. With that decision, the autonomy of our employees once enjoyed changed. Now, under President Trump, we follow an established precedent: we serve in the pleasure and direction of the president. Only courts or congress can intervene. “

Rich Couture, spokesman for the General Social Security Committee of the American Federation of Government employees, which represents around 42,000 SSA employees, said that its union is still trying to understand how the reorganization of Dudek will affect the provision of services.

“We have significant concerns about whether the decrease in support services provided by the headquarters and components of the regional office will affect the first -line workforce,” he said. The union has requested a formal warning and more information about restructuring, but has not received an answer.

At a press conference on Monday, the Senate Democrats accused the administration and musk of sabotaging the agency as the first step in an effort to strip Americans of their benefits won and sell the agency’s functions to the private industry.

“If you take the system today, with these excellent statistics that 99.7% of the retirement benefits are paid with precision time, and start emptying it, which is essentially what they are doing, and then they will say:” Oh, my God, we need the private sector here, or we will not have a program, “said Senator Ron Wyden, D-Core.” This is the story of this type of effort. privatization “.

Senator Patty Murray, D-Wash., He called Trump and Musk’s actions in SSA as similar to “take a demolition ball” to the agency and its services.

“Trump and Elon are now pushing all the employees of the SSA by the door,” he said. “They threaten them with future shots and forced reallocations while offering financial incentives to leave. . . 90% of the agency’s staff works throughout the country outside the headquarters at more than 1,200 field offices to ensure that they are available to help people in each part of the country. And the personnel who do not provide direct service to the Americans support the performance of the critical work maintained by the agency and the social security system in operation ”.

But when the reporters ask them if their caucus Demand protection In an agreement to avoid a government closure at the end of this month, Murray, the main Democrat in the Senate Assignments Committee, demured.

“We are seeing several different things,” he said. “The only one who wants a closure at this time is Elon Musk, since he recently tweeted about it. We are all working to do this. The best way to do it is a CR in the short term, and our committees are able to do this. ”