WASHINGTON —The federal workers union came out swinging Thursday against a Republican proposal to reduce the size of the Pentagon’s civilian workforce.
The American Federation of Government Employees, in a letter to congressional and administration leaders, criticized a plan to purportedly save $25 billion in each of the next five years by not filling a portion of the civilian positions at the Defense Department that are vacated each year.
“The problem with this approach is that actual waste is not being cut while cutting the civilian workforce will hollow out the Department’s capabilities, repeating mistakes from the past,” wrote Julie N. Tippens, director of the union’s legislative department, in the letter to defense appropriators and authorizers, congressional leadership, top officials at the Pentagon and the director of the White House Office of Management and Budget.
