Protest planned in Asheville to combat widespread federal employee terminations

    ASHEVILLE, North Carolina (WLOS) -- Federal workers locally and nationwide continue to wonder if their jobs will soon be gone. Many offices around Western North Carolina are feeling the effects of the Trump administration’s recent layoffs.

Brandee Morris is the president of the 446 local chapter of the American Federation of Government Employees (AFGE). She’s had a hectic couple of weeks.

AFGE is also hosting a protest against the federal firings on Friday, Feb. 21, beginning at noon outside the federal complex in downtown Asheville.

“Most of the terminations started last week,” Morris said. “They were at the end of last week and mostly probationary employees. What are the next steps? They have no idea. This literally came in overnight.”

Those terminations are reaching offices in the WNC mountains like the Veteran’s Affairs, Blue Ridge Parkway, and the Pisgah National Forest.

The Parkway could have more backups if staffing can’t continue to work on affected areas of the road after Helene.

“[The Parkway] had got approval, from the prior administration, to hire multiple people for maintenance on the parkway because of all the destruction from Hurricane Helene,” Morris said. “There was a freeze on hiring. We can’t do it. We can’t have those people there now.”

Mike Knoerr posted about his termination from the U.S. Forest Service on Facebook, and it received over 2,000 likes.

“He is the only wildlife biologist [at Pisgah National Forest],” Morris said. “There’s no more. In order to be compliant with endangered species acts, and all kinds of things of that nature, you have to have a biologist up there.”

Of the 3,000 federal workers Morris represents, she’s unsure how many lost their jobs. However, she expects that number to grow.

That’s why the AFGE has spent February taking action.

“We went up to DC,” Morris said. “We were there all week with AFGE. We had a legislative conference. I spoke with Senator Thom Tillis and Senator Ted Budd’s office. We’ll file lawsuits. We’ll probably win because laws are being broken, and we have contracts. It’s just going to cost the taxpayer more money. We’re going to have to go to the back pay and how many years this will take.”

“We’ve been sending out lots of stuff on social media,” Morris said. “There’s a lot of stuff on our website. This would be detrimental to me but to so many in Western North Carolina. We want people to stand in solidarity with us. We’re all coming together as unions as one to fight off these attacks.”

Morris added that she expects a good turnout for the protest.