Donald Trump’s executive orders are likely to have a tangible impact on Philadelphia’s federal workers

Hours after President Donald Trump was inaugurated into his second presidential term Monday, he took to the stage of the Capital One Arena in Washington and signed two executive orders on the federal workforce, appearing to initiate the beginning stages of one of his main campaign platforms.

The directives — a hiring freeze and mandating in-person work — could have a significant impact in Philadelphia, a major hub for federal workers, yet agencies’ staff are often stretched thin and have crucial telework employees.

The total number of orders comes in stark contrast to Day 1 of Trump’s first term, when he issued only one executive order, according to the Federal Register. And it’s clear that these orders, among the first eight signed by the new president, won’t sit well with unions representing federal workers.

Here’s what to know about these orders and how they will impact the local area.

Trump signed executive orders imposing a hiring freeze on the federal government and requiring federal workers to return to total in-person work.

The orders closely align with goals outlined by billionaire Elon Musk and biotech entrepreneur Vivek Ramaswamy for the “Department of Government Efficiency,” an advisory commission tasked with streamlining the government.

Musk, the Tesla CEO and richest man in the world, has become a close ally in Trump’s political orbit. He has expressed his desire to sharply reduce the federal workforce. Musk attended Trump’s inauguration at the Capitol and delivered a speech at the arena as part of Trump’s inaugural festivities.

The order instructs that “the Director of the Office of Management and Budget (OMB), in consultation with the Director of OPM and the Administrator of the United States DOGE Service (USDS), shall submit a plan to reduce the size of the Federal Government’s workforce through efficiency improvements and attrition.”

After this plan is issued the memorandum will expire for the executive branch and other agencies, except the Internal Revenue Service.

A hiring freeze — which Trump instituted once before, at the beginning of his first term — would have real on-the-ground impacts in Philadelphia, resulting in less security or safety personnel or even interpreters or maintenance workers at Independence National Historical Park, said Philip Glover, District 3 National Vice President of the American Federation of Government Employees.

AFGE is the largest federal employee union, representing 800,000 workers.

To supplement prospective workers blocked by the hiring freeze, the government may instead contract positions to individuals who may not take their work in the city as seriously, Glover said.

“Some people don’t take the care of those facilities that our people do. Our people kind of revere working there, and so that’s not just a job for many of them, and that’s what’s bad about this,” Glover said.

The executive order Trump signed Monday includes exceptions for the military and some other professions, including immigration enforcement, national security, and public safety. The order also claims that the freeze won’t “adversely impact the provision of Social Security, Medicare, or Veterans’ benefits.”

According to the executive order, employers are not allowed to contract outside the federal government.

David Fitzpatrick, secretary-treasurer of the AFGE Council 270 and a retired National Park Service maintenance employee in Philadelphia, said when he retired in 2019, the local park service had 60 to 70 maintenance workers. Now the agency is down half that amount.

Underwhelming staffing for maintenance, park rangers, and security personnel could be exacerbated by a hiring freeze, Fitzpatrick said.

“What happens when that one carpenter we have for emergency repairs, what happens when he retires?” Fitzpatrick said.

Frank Bailey, northeast regional vice president for the Council of Prison Locals, said a hiring freeze in combination with recruiting difficulties would “decimate” the Bureau of Prisons, resulting in decreased staffing numbers nationwide and in Philadelphia where the “numbers would drastically fall.”

“Why would they come work for us when the pay is comparable with other places?” Bailey said. “So when you couple the pay shortage that we have with a hiring freeze, we would end up losing and falling even further behind the eight ball.”

Trump told reporters last month that he plans to fire any federal workers who don’t abide by his order to work in person five days a week. But unions, including the AFGE, will surely put up a fight.

Many local labor contracts cover telework, potentially laying the groundwork for a clash between unions and the Trump administration, Glover said. For example, federal workers at a military site on Robbins Avenue have an agreement in their contract that allows them to telework two to four days per pay period.

“That’s in an agreement,” Glover said. “And we don’t think an executive order should be able to override an agreement.”

Productivity has increased at some agencies thanks to telework, Glover said, but there’s also misconceptions about how many employees — like those who work for the Veterans Administration in Philadelphia or the National Park Service — work from home.

It also raises some questions as to how federal workers that are employed by Pennsylvania-based agencies but live in other locations and rely on telework, would navigate this new order, Glover said.

“There’s misconceptions that all these agencies are all teleworking, and nobody can be seen and all this stuff, and that needs to be debunked; it’s just not true,” Glover said.