Workers decry Trump officials as 'out of control' as longest shutdown drags on [View all]

Source: The Guardian

Thu 6 Nov 2025 06.00 EST
Last modified on Thu 6 Nov 2025 06.02 EST


As the US federal shutdown enters its second month, government workers are accusing the Trump administration of being “out of control” and bullying people who are “simply trying to do their best”. The shutdown surpassed 35 days this week, beating the previous record set under Donald Trump’s first presidential term. About 700,000 federal employees are furloughed without pay, and about 700,000 additional federal workers have been working without pay through the shutdown.

Affected workers say the shutdown has been a continuation of attacks they have experienced under the Trump administration, from mass firings – many of which have been overturned or blocked in federal courts – to drastic budget cuts, pushes to take early retirements or resignation buyouts, and threats of withholding back pay for workers furloughed during the shutdown.

“It’s already been a chaotic year,” said Micah Niemeier-Walsh, who works at the National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health (Niosh). She was initially fired along with most employees at the agency, but reinstated in May after a court intervened to block most of the firings.

“For many agencies, like the one that I am employed by, we’ve been effectively shut down for many months already because of the reductions in force that have already happened, and all of the attacks that we’ve been seeing on the federal workforce,” said Niemeier-Walsh, who is also vice-president of the American Federation of Government Employees (AFGE) Local 3840. “It’s become out of control, and I really hope that this shutdown is a wake-up call of how bad things have gotten.”

Read more: https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2025/nov/06/trump-federal-government-shutdown