A Social Security card is displayed.
Associated Press File
WILKES-BARRE — The growing influence of the Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) has reached Northeast Pennsylvania, and it’s causing uncertainty for workers.
According to Barri Sue Bryant, regional president for the American Federation of Government Employees, workers at the Wilkes-Barre Data Operations Center (WBDOC) of the Social Security Administration (SSA) have received emails from DOGE over the past few weeks. The emails — which were sent from hr@opm.gov — are asking employees to type out a five-point, bulleted list of tasks they completed during their work week. The first email, sent two weeks ago, was called voluntary. The second, sent last week, was not.
“Some people chose to answer, and some people chose not to,” Bryant said of the first set of emails. “This time, however, they told us it was mandatory.”
According to Bryant, the requested lists are a waste of time, as SSA employees’ tasks, from the length of their calls to the amount of claims they process, are tracked.
“There is no reason for us to take 15 minutes apiece for 16,000 workers to take the time to answer this email. If anything is a waste of time and taxpayer money, it’s that,” Bryant said. The lists are additionally superfluous, according to Bryant, because SSA employees are already subject to rigorous performance reviews.
DOGE’s leadership is a disputed matter within Donald Trump’s administration, though it is generally associated with billionaire Elon Musk.
A far cry from Musk, the richest person on the planet, the vast majority of SSA workers are making a middle-class wage, according to Bryant. She said these emails are likely to be sent out every week in the future, even if an employee is on vacation. The uncertainty of the situation makes the individual stakes incredibly high.
“This is why our employees are a mess,” said Bryant. “They’re feeling if they write the wrong thing, they could be let go.”
In response, the American Federation of Government Employees put in a bargaining demand. In the meantime, the union is advising employees to be broad with their bulleted lists and be careful with the information they share with DOGE, citing privacy concerns. For many employees, making five bullet points out of their intensive yet precise tasks can be a challenge.
“What we’ve been telling them is just to focus on the main parts of their job, which is process requests from the public as requested and serve the public with dignity, respect and professionalism,” Bryant said.
The encroachment of DOGE on everyday operations within SSA also impacts the public. Bryant said that SSA is at a 50-year low in terms of employees, though the number of beneficiaries has increased fivefold in that same period of time. Wait times are already an issue at certain points of the day, and a federal plan to lay off thousands of additional employees would only exacerbate problems already present.
“We’re doing lots more with lots less, and if they cut 7,000 more people out, I don’t even know what to say for the public,” Bryant explained.
The public’s anxiety is reflected in the workers tasked with helping them. The shakiness and lack of information regarding job security have infused the workplace with a nervous feeling.
“It’s lots and lots of tears from our newest employee to our oldest employees,” Bryant said of the current situation. “From our frontline staff to managers, nobody knows what’s going on, and it’s stressful for everyone.”
Buildings for sale?
Per previous reporting in the Times Leader, three federal buildings in the local area were being considered for sale on the General Services Administration (GSA) website on Tuesday. Those included SSA buildings in Wilkes-Barre and Hazleton, which were listed as “non-core properties.”
By Wednesday evening, those listings were gone from the website.
“If we can’t own any buildings, and they’ve already canceled all of the leases for buildings, and they’re already working on canceling the telework — so where does that leave the employees? As far as what they’re plan is, I have no idea, but we’ve not gotten any responses,” Bryant said.