DOT’s firings raising anxieties beyond flying

Many of those firings in other parts of the federal government are in doubt after a judge on Thursday ordered the rehiring of tens of thousands of probationary workers at six departments, but that ruling did not include DOT. The DOT spokesperson reiterated in a statement Wednesday that cuts to less than 2 percent of DOT’s workforce “do not run counter to the mission of safety” and that its “teams are layered with redundancies that ensure restructuring does not compromise safety operations.” The spokesperson said that safety is Duffy’s first priority and added that if DOT’s employees “feel this new, fast-paced, solutions-orientated environment is too challenging, it may be time to consider a job outside of the department.” But safety advocates outside the government shared the employees’ alarm at the firings’ impact, including those at less well-known branches of DOT such as the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration, which has around 800 employees. “Understanding those things is really essential to creating regulations and rules to make sure future incidents do not occur or at least are not as dangerous.” Another fired employee’s work involved studying how to improve the safety of electric vehicle batteries and how to ensure that people with physical and cognitive disabilities can use automated public transportation, such as autonomous buses. “It’s been a struggle to continue our work without them,” a current DOT worker said, giving as an example work that can’t be accessed because it was on a fired worker’s laptop. I just don’t think the marching orders are worth much.” When asked to respond to the criticisms by his current and former employees, a DOT spokesperson pointed back to a prepared statement saying, in part, that “Secretary Duffy will continue to make safety his number one priority, and any suggestion to the contrary is a lie.”