WASHINGTON–The contested and uncertain state of employment at the CFPB continues, with reports of staffers working 36 hours straight to send out layoff notices and a federal judge then putting those layoffs on hold.
According to CNN, one member of Elon Musk’s Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) kept Consumer Financial Protection Bureau staffers at work for 36 hours straight in order to send out the mass layoff notices at the agency, including “screaming at those he thought weren’t working fast enough,” according to a declaration filed last week in a legal case over the terminations, the report stated.
‘Screaming at People’
“DOGE member Gavin Kliger managed the RIF (Reduction in Force) He kept the team up for 36 hours straight to ensure that the notices would go out yesterday (April 17). Gavin was screaming at people he did not believe were working fast enough to ensure they could go out on this compressed timeline, calling them incompetent,” an unidentified member of the team working on the reduction in force, or RIF, notices,” the report stated, noting the person used a pseudonym in the filing for fear of retaliation.
The CFPB started sending RIF notices to about 1,500 of the 1,700 agency staffers last week.
Judge Issues Ruling
However, the layoffs are on hold after U.S. District Judge Amy Berman Jackson issued an order temporarily blocking the effort to terminate approximately 90% of the CFPB’s workforce. The order comes after plaintiffs in the case, which include the CFPB Employee Association and other labor entities, accused the government of violating her earlier injunction.
Jackson said that within several days of an appeals order narrowing her initial injunction, workers at the Bureau were told the agency would do “exactly what it was told not to do,” which was to carry out a RIF.
“I’m willing to resolve it quickly, but I’m not going to let this RIF go forward until I have,” she said during a hearing late last week, adding she is “deeply concerned, given the scope and scope of action.”
