After Hours: Back to Work or Out of Work Back to Work or Out of Work (From the Archives)

Summary

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Podcast Summary

Podcast: Full Measure After Hours
Episode: Back to Work or Out of Work (From the Archives)
Host: Sharyl Attkisson
Guest: Randy Irwin, President of the National Federation of Federal Employees
Release Date: November 27, 2025

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Overview

This episode explores the Trump administration’s hardline stance on federal telework and mass workforce reductions. Sharyl Attkisson interviews Randy Irwin, president of the National Federation of Federal Employees, for an insider’s perspective on the political, operational, and human impacts of bringing federal employees back to in-person work and implementing large-scale layoffs. The conversation highlights competing narratives, dispels misconceptions, and raises serious concerns about the repercussions of rapidly downsizing government.

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Key Discussion Points & Insights

1. Origins and Evolution of Federal Telework

• Irwin debunks the idea that COVID-19 was the true beginning of federal telework. Telework started with the Bush administration’s post-9/11 push for government continuity in emergencies, enabled by advancements in laptops and home internet.

  • “The start of the story is when people started having access to laptops and Internet at home...after 9/11 telework became a very high priority.” (Randy Irwin, 02:31)

• The COVID pandemic significantly expanded telework, and Irwin calls it a “success story”:

  • “Virtually overnight, the federal workforce was sent home, but it was really a success story because our government continued to operate.” (Randy Irwin, 02:56)

2. The Telework ‘Crisis’ Narrative

• Clarification of Telework Data:

  • Misquoted statistic: Trump and other critics claim “only 6% of federal workers are coming to work.”
    • Irwin counters:
      • 54% of workers aren’t eligible for telework and already work in-person full time.
      • Only 37% are eligible, and even those spend 61% of their time onsite.
      • Overall, federal telework is less prevalent than in the private sector.
        • “It is very much a made-up problem that federal workers aren’t coming to work. That’s nonsense.” (Randy Irwin, 03:32-04:34)

• Cause of Resentment:

  • Irwin notes the politicization of telework and suggests public jealousy/perceptions about “lazy” federal workers are fueled by opponents of big government.
    • “People perpetuating these falsehoods...makes federal employees seem lazy when overall that is not the truth.” (Randy Irwin, 04:56-05:54)

3. Office Space, Costs, and Efficiency

• No Real Estate Savings:

  • Irwin argues that bringing workers back actually increases costs (utilities, space), and federal agencies have missed an opportunity to downsize physical office space to save taxpayer money.
    • “What really should have happened is ...downsize those offices and actually save the American taxpayer money.” (Randy Irwin, 06:22)

• Effectiveness of Telework:

  • 81% of federal workdays are, in fact, spent in the office.
    • “So really, those who are not effective at telework have come back into the office, by and large.” (Randy Irwin, 07:15-07:45)

4. The Voluntary Buyout & Mass Firings

• Buyout Offers:
  • Approx. 75,000 federal employees accepted a buyout/resignation program, but Irwin says it’s “a bad deal”—no guarantee of leave, threat of firing still present, and some recipients must continue working until resignation date.
    • “The whole thing was a threat. If you don’t resign, then there’s going to be a reduction in force and you’re going to be fired.” (Randy Irwin, 08:19-09:19)

5. Impacts of Large-Scale Federal Downsizing

• Irwin predicts “absolute disaster” if the workforce is reduced by 75% as planned:

  • Essential services will collapse: longer waits for passports and VA appointments, threats to military readiness, public safety, and disaster response.
    • “You can’t have those kind of cuts and have even a semblance of the services...” (Randy Irwin, 10:18-12:28)

• The U.S. federal workforce has not grown in 50 years (while population and service scope have).

• The process has undermined the tradition of a nonpartisan, apolitical federal workforce with job protections.

  • “Job security is gone in the federal government now...It’s costly to recruit and retain a federal employee. A lot of people are just going to say, you know, it is not worth it.” (Randy Irwin, 11:39-12:30)

6. Technology, Bureaucracy, and Efficiency Arguments

• Clinton/Gore-era workforce reductions were aided by digitization; Irwin notes no such transformation exists now to justify further cuts.

  • “There is not a corresponding technological advance...They are cutting into the bone. There is no fat left to ...cut from government.” (Randy Irwin, 12:57-13:47)

• Responding to the “leaner, meaner” argument, Irwin says the mass layoff approach disproportionately harms high performers who can more easily find other employment, and “puts a stick in the spokes” of good government.

  • “They’re just trying to get rid of numbers. They’re trying to break our government. They’re putting a stick in the spokes, they’re pouring sand on the gears. That does not make our government more efficient.” (Randy Irwin, 14:30)

7. Predictions & Immediate Consequences

• Scale of Impact: Irwin doubts the full extent of proposed cuts will go through, but partial cuts are already causing pain—wildfire fighting capacity, veteran services, and frontline agencies see immediate effects.

  • “Communities will burn to the ground if we don’t have enough wildland firefighters...It was heartbreaking to talk to them and hear their stories.” (Randy Irwin, 15:17-16:38)

• 200,000+ probationary federal employees are first to be terminated, and more will follow unless there is congressional intervention after public backlash.

  • “We filed a lawsuit. It’s completely illegal what they’re doing. They’re trying to follow Elon Musk and his Twitter firing model. That does not apply in the federal government.” (Randy Irwin, 17:07-17:47)

8. Project 2025 and Union Response

• Much of what’s happening was outlined in Project 2025 (conservative blueprint for government overhaul), which Trump is now executing.

  • “A lot of the things that he’s doing right now were spelled out in Project 2025...So we definitely had a sense.” (Randy Irwin, 17:56-18:23)

• Union membership is rapidly rising due to workers feeling threatened.

• High percent of federal employees are veterans—layoffs would mean firing half a million veterans and drastically undercutting the VA’s ability to serve.

  • “If they lay off 75% of the federal workforce, they are going to be firing half a million veterans in this country...if we lose 75% of the [VA] workforce, we will no longer be making good on that promise [to veterans].” (Randy Irwin, 18:24-19:52)

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Notable Quotes & Memorable Moments

• “It is very much a made up problem that federal workers aren’t coming to work. That’s nonsense.”
  — Randy Irwin (04:34)

• “What really should have happened is ...downsized those offices and actually save the American taxpayer money.”
  — Randy Irwin (06:22)

• “It will be an absolute disaster in this country. It really will be. People do not understand the critical services that our federal government provides.”
  — Randy Irwin (10:18)

• “They’re trying to break our government. They’re putting a stick in the spokes, they’re pouring sand on the gears. That does not make our government more efficient.”
  — Randy Irwin (14:30)

• “Communities will burn to the ground if we don’t have enough wildland firefighters...It was heartbreaking to talk to them and hear their stories.”
  — Randy Irwin (15:18)

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Timestamps for Key Segments

• [02:31] – Irwin explains the real beginnings of federal telework
• [03:32] – Telework statistics and debunking the “6%” myth
• [06:22] – Argues bringing workers back increases costs
• [08:19] – Details and criticisms of the buyout program
• [10:18] – Predicts consequences of massive federal downsizing
• [12:57] – The Clinton/Gore “reinventing government” compared to today
• [14:30] – Response to claims of increased efficiency through layoffs
• [15:17] – Specific impacts on services such as wildfire response
• [17:56] – Project 2025’s role and union emergency response
• [18:24] – Layoffs’ impact on veterans and the Department of Veterans Affairs

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Conclusion

This episode offers an impassioned critique of the Trump administration’s push to reduce federal telework and workforce size, highlighting the political, social, and operational complexity of such changes. The interview with Randy Irwin provides a union leader’s view—challenging prevailing media narratives and warning of immediate and lasting damage to essential government services, especially for veterans and vulnerable communities. Listeners are prompted to look for more comprehensive coverage—including opposing views and supporting data—on Full Measure’s March 30 TV program.

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Transcript

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[Cheryl Atkison]

Hi everybody. Cheryl Akieson here. Welcome to another edition of Full Measure After Hours. Today we examine the Trump administration pledge to fire federal workers who refuse to come back into the office. When President Trump took office for a second term, there were somewhere in the neighborhood of about 2.3 million civilian federal employees. That's about the size of the population of New Mexico. Never before have they as a group been so shaken up than under this second Trump administration under the direction of the Department of Government Efficiency, or doge. They've been told the party's over, but some insist there never was a party to begin with and that the downsizing is going to have disastrous results. In today's podcast we will hear a view from Randy Irwin, president of the National Federation of Federal Employees. This is a union representing about 110,000 federal workers nationwide. He is obviously against the idea of downsizing the federal workforce. And I will say up front, some of the facts and numbers that he gives in the interview are disputed by the other side. But here is his take on President Trump's back to work orders and mass firings.

[Interviewer]

Was Covid the thing that sparked it and then people just never came back to work in as great a numbers.

[Randy Irwin]

I think that's not the start of the story. The start of the story is when people started having access to laptops and Internet at home. And so and then after 911 telework became a very high priority of the Bush administration. A Republican so that in case of some national emergency, we could still continue government operations. And that kind of got the ball rolling for telework in the federal government. Certainly that continued through a couple administrations. We had the COVID pandemic, which really tested our ability to have telework. Virtually overnight, the federal workforce was sent home, but it was really a success story because our government continued to operate. There were a few bumps in the road, but overall the continuity of our government continued and vital services to the American people got delivered.

[Interviewer]

Is it true that after Covid, the number or proportion of workers doing telework increased?

[Randy Irwin]

Oh, absolutely, yeah. There was a soft ending to Covid and, you know, it varied quite a bit by location. But what's important, the people need to know that they have been misled about the problem of telework in the federal government because they have been said, it was said by Trump, said by members of Congress that only 6% of federal workers are coming to work. That's nonsense. 54% of federal workers are not even eligible for Telework, which means 100% of their time is spent at the federal work site. There's 37% of the federal workforce, a minority of the federal workforce that both has a federal work site and is eligible for telework. And in that little subset, they're spending 61% of their time at the federal work site. And overall there's less telework in the federal government than in the private sector. So it is very much a made up problem that federal workers aren't coming to work. That's nonsense.

[Interviewer]

We'll ask them. But do you know where the 6% figure comes from that they're citing?

[Randy Irwin]

I do not.

[Interviewer]

Do you think the heart of some of this is jealousy? People in private industry that maybe aren't allowed to work at home or imagine that federal workers aren't doing as much work when they're at home. Just don't like that idea.

[Randy Irwin]

It's a shame that it's a political issue. I think anytime, you know, there's a lot of talk of how big is government? And that's legitimate debate. How big should our government be? How much should we be spending on these services? There's nothing wrong with that. But for the folks that want less government, less spending, lower taxes also, right. They it turns into just a criticism of federal employees. No matter what, they will not say anything good about federal workers, no matter how good a service they provide to people or at good value. And so any little thing that they can harp onto that makes federal employees seem lazy or what have you. Those stories have legs and so people get the wrong idea. But there are very much people perpetuating these falsehoods to make federal employees employees seem lazy when overall that is not the truth. They're dedicated workers.

[Interviewer]

As more federal workers have worked at home. I know there was no model for this, sure. But we haven't seen a correlated amount of sort of shrinking of real estate, for example, because a lot of there are stats that show office buildings, federal and private real estate is more empty now. Spaces are more empty. Certainly where I work that's the case. There hasn't been a commiserate downsizing of the space, which could save money.

[Randy Irwin]

Sure.

[Interviewer]

What are your thoughts about that?

[Randy Irwin]

Well, it's funny that people want to bring federal workers back to the work site to save money because that does the exact opposite because it costs money to put somebody in a cubicle and turn on those lights and turn on the air conditioning and everything like that. So what really should have happened is when we learned that so many federal workers could telework effectively, there should have been a reregulation of how much office, you know, federal office space is used. They should downsize those those offices and actually save the American taxpayer money while allowing the only those who can effectively telework, allowing them to continue.

[Interviewer]

That's a good point. I think all of us know people who can be effective working at home, and we all probably know people who couldn't be right. And we wonder how the federal government discriminates or figures out are they getting the best and the most of a worker who's not coming into the office regularly?

[Randy Irwin]

Absolutely. The American taxpayer deserve to get the services that they're paying for. But again, when they put out statistics like only 6% of the federal workforce is coming to work, it seems like virtually nobody's coming to work. But 81% of federal work days are spent in the office overall. 81%. So really, those who are not effective at telework have come back into the office, by and large. For those who are more efficient at telework, they're continuing to telework. But what are they doing now? They're saying in the name of efficiency, we're going to say stop being efficient at home, get in your car, drive in here and be less efficient in a federal workspace with taxpayers are having to pay for that makes no sense.

[Interviewer]

As we sit here, I believe the number was something like, tell me if you know a different number 75,000 government employees have taken advantage of an offer, sort of a buyout, to leave their jobs and get an eight month paid vacation. What are your thoughts about this whole process?

[Randy Irwin]

It's terrible for our country. It was, you know, in our view, a bad deal for federal employees. Our recommendation was people got to decide for themselves, but our recommendation is don't accept it. The way you described it is not really what it was. You know, the offer, the way it was kind of billed publicly was it's like an early resignation and you essentially get to be home till September 30th. That's not what the contract really said. So people are probably going to have to continue to work to that day. Those people that accepted that there's also no protection from a reduction in force. So I mean, the whole thing was a threat. If you don't resign, then there's going to be a reduction in force and you're going to be fired. So they were under duress, under threat of being fired. But even if they accepted it, even if they accepted the deferred resignation, they can still be riffed, they can still be let go. And so it wasn't a good deal. And that's the deal with that.

[Interviewer]

Could you explain a little more what the contract said that could keep those people who took advantage of it, could make them have to keep working or coming into the office for some time.

[Randy Irwin]

I don't have the exact verbiage, but the gist of it is there was no guarantee that, that you're going to be put on administrative leave. Because some people, why would people, some do it? Some people might say, okay, I can get paid for six months, I can go work another job or you know, go on vacation or whatever. You want to spend more time with your family, whatever it is. But there's a big difference between that and having to continue to work until that resignation date.

[Interviewer]

What do you foresee in the next four or even 10 years as a result of what's going to happen in the next four years? If government is significantly downsized, as this administration says it intends to do.

[Randy Irwin]

It will be an absolute disaster in this country. It really will be. People do not understand the critical services that our federal government provides. You know, we've got 2 million, 2.2 million federal workers. That number has not grown in 50 years. So it's, it's another fallacy that our government is so big in terms of the number of federal employees. It has not grown. Our population has grown. The scope of what government does has grown. But the number of federal workers has not. They've been squeezed and squeezed and squeezed over the years. But, you know, I'm really worried. We just can't provide the services. You know, it'll take 10 years to get a passport. You know, the. How long would it take for to. You've heard about length of. Of list to get a VA appointment. It, you know, if we lost 75% of the VA workforce, we would no longer be making good on the promise to care for our veterans in this country. Our military will not be ready. Our homeland security will be compromised. We will not have safe air travel. We will not have clean water, clean safe food, safe air travel. The list goes on and on. You can't have those kind of cuts and have even a semblance of the services that are done for the American people. And even if they change course, they have done permanent damage already by politicizing the federal workforce. I mean, for over a century, we have had an apolitical federal workforce, swears an oath to the Constitution, you know, to uphold the Constitution and serve the American people. And now they have learned that they can be threatened. And if you can be threatened and you can insert politics into, into the function, into the, the successful functioning of our government, they are no longer safe. People used to think, well, if I get a federal job that comes with some protections, that some. Comes with some job security, that's another one. Job security is gone in the federal government now. So all those people that would be federal employees. And it's, it's costly to recruit and retain a federal employee. A lot of people are just going to say, you know, it is not worth it. I don't want to go there, because right now they're seeing people be fired for just doing their jobs.

[Interviewer]

This is not a key point that I was going to focus on. I'll mention it. You're the expert. I'm not. But I thought I heard President Clinton or someone in the Clinton administration in a clip just in the past couple days, size the workforce at the time, which would have been the 90s at something like 1.5 to 1.8 million, which would be smaller than it is today if it's 2.2, but.

[Randy Irwin]

Yeah, well, I mean, it's been 25 years.

[Interviewer]

Yeah, you said it hadn't.

[Randy Irwin]

There was. I mean, I have seen some clips recently of Clinton and Gore, and they're reinventing government initiative. And guess what? They reinvented government. Previously, we didn't have email, we didn't have electronic communications. You had a lot of clerks. You had a lot of paperwork and that meant a lot of employees. And so that was an important initiative to kind of like move into the electronic era. But there is not a corresponding technological advance that allows us to do that, to do that sort of thing again right now. And so the things that Trump and Musk are doing are hitting at the heart of the services. They are cutting into the bone. There is no fat left to squeeze or cut from from government. There's very little left. The things that they're talking about, 75% of the federal workforce will decimate services. And we're. And it's not dangerous for our country.

[Interviewer]

And I'm not trying to knock, I want to play devil's advocate and give the view that probably you're hearing or a lot of people are saying, I know there are awesome federal employees. Some of them are sources for stories that I do. They're hardworking, they're honest, you know, fantastic. We've all though been through the bureaucracy where we've seen inefficiencies. We know how long it takes to do something simple. We can't get things done. The idea, the idealized ideal of all this is we pare down the workforce. Those who are left are the hardest workers who want to be there the most and they're going to be more efficient and the streamlined process makes everything better. Is there any way to say that that's absolutely impossible?

[Randy Irwin]

Well, that's definitely not what we're going to get from these initiatives. I mean, they sent out a deferred resignation offer to over 2 million federal workers of 90% or more. And so you're not keeping the most efficient, the highest producers. Those are the ones who can more easily find work elsewhere. They're just trying to get rid of numbers. They're trying to break our government. They're putting a stick in the spokes, they're pouring sand on the gears. That does not make our government more efficient and it doesn't help provide those services to the American people.

[Interviewer]

If there's no way to change this course that it's headed, if there are lawsuits that try to stop it, that don't work, what do you foresee in the next couple of years? What are you going to tell people are your predictions?

[Randy Irwin]

I don't think that can possibly happen. I mean, we can see a reduction a little bit of a percentage, but nothing in the neighborhood of 75% because people, it'll change the way we exist in this country. We take so much for granted. But communities will burn to the ground. If we don't have enough wildland firefighters, that's a big one. You know, in the Forest Service, they. We got layoff notices. There's about 20,000 people in the Forest Service, 3,400 got layoff notices yesterday. And it's just the first round. I was with these people. It was heartbreaking to talk to them and hear their stories. But if you just saw what happened out in California, the wildfire problem in this country is growing. It's the federal government, the U.S. forest Service, that. That controls wildfire. If we lose 75% of that workforce, communities are going to burn to the ground, and people should be up in arms. They got to get the message that we got to stop it from happening. But once I think they see a few examples of how bad things get with these type of cuts, I think there's going to be outcries, and I think Congress is going to change course. I mean, Trump signed a big executive order, you know, just this week, directing people to find, directing federal agencies to go forth and do reductions in force, mass reductions in force. The first ones that they're doing are workers that are on probation. So of the 2.2 million, a little over 200,000 are probationary employees, and those are the first ones being laid off. They have the fewest protections of federal workers because once you get up to one year, you're off your probation, your protections go up. But it doesn't change the fact that this is a mass firing. And so we're going to start to see the effects of these kinds of policies. But, I mean, we filed a lawsuit. It's completely illegal what they're doing. They're trying to follow Elon Musk and his Twitter firing model. That does not apply in the federal government. We have laws. There's a RIF procedure. It is spelled out in law. It is a regulated thing, and you have to follow that procedure. And, you know, an important thing is the Constitution. Following the Constitution right now, because Trump is, you know, under Article 2, Section 3 of the Constitution, he has to faithfully execute the laws of this country. And he is flaunting the laws. He is not executing them at all. And that's why you're seeing so many lawsuits.

[Interviewer]

Did you see this coming? You know, before he was elected, Were you thinking, if he's elected, this will happen, or is this sort of a surprise?

[Randy Irwin]

Well, we got a taste of it in the first administration, and then a lot of the things that he's doing right now were spelled out in Project 2025. And they're, you know, during his campaign he tried to distance himself from Project 2025. But at this point, a lot of things he is executing that, you know, to, to the T. So we, we had a, you know, we definitely had a sense because we read that we.

[Interviewer]

Saw like emergency meetings or anything.

[Randy Irwin]

Yeah, it's been non stop emergency meetings. But you know, our membership is growing. Our membership, we've had more growth in the last three weeks than at any point in our history because federal employees are feeling threatened. We do feel like we have a righteous cause here because we, you know, our members, they care about the services that they provide. One, one part of the story that needs to be told is the impact on veterans because 30% of the federal workforce are veterans. And if they lay off 75% of the federal workforce, they are going to be firing half a million veterans in this country. And I don't care who you voted for, that is not what the American people want and it should be completely unacceptable. The other part is, you know, the Department of Veterans affairs is one of the biggest agencies in the federal government after DOD. It's the second biggest. Over 400,000 employees making good on that promise to care for the American veteran. And if we lose 75% of the workforce, we will no longer be making good on that promise. And that's the thing that we just cannot possibly have. And it really does break my heart to be thinking of veterans calling a suicide hotline and there'd be nobody there to answer the phone. And that's what we're going to get if we go down this road.

[Cheryl Atkison]

You can see this interview but hear the entire story which includes the other side and more information on full measure March 30. You will also hear about how there are numbers and studies that do support that 6% figure at some agencies. There was also a self survey that came up with a 6% figure of people who come into the office all the time when they're federal workers. So you'll hear all of those viewpoints and more information on March 30th. To find out where to watch Full Measure, just go to cheryl Atkison.com and click on the Full Measure tab. You can find a station and a time in your area or you can always watch online at FullMeasure News. We feed the program around 9:35am Eastern Time at Fullmeasure News on Sundays and then we post the program there afterwards. So if you happen to be listening to this after March 30th, you can still go to Fullmeasure News and look for the story on Telework. Be sure to check out my five star bestseller. Follow the How Big Pharma Misleads, Obscures, and Prevails this book has never been more relevant. The information in it, meticulously cited and documented, never been more important to your health and your family's health. Find out why so many people are saying that even though they consider themselves very well informed on the issue of health and the medical establishment corruption, that most of what I have in this book are things that they didn't know anything about. That's Follow the Science How Big Pharma Misleads, Obscures, and Prevents Prevails. Do your own research. Make up your own mind. Think for yourself.