Reuters reports:

Members of the over 2 million-strong U.S. civilian federal workforce are looking to an unlikely source to protect it from Donald Trump and Elon Musk’s promise to slash government employees and cut costs: the incoming Republican-controlled Congress.

Federal employee unions are lining up lawyers and preparing public campaigns to try to stave off any mass firings, but they’re hoping Republican Congress members will join Democrats in defending their importance to local economies, health and safety, union members and government watchdogs tell Reuters.

Trump has tasked Musk and former presidential candidate Vivek Ramaswamy to head a panel to streamline the U.S. government and is expected to revive a plan to convert some federal employees to “Schedule F” status which strips them of job protections.

Musk has said he could cut $2 trillion in spending, more than the annual discretionary budget; Ramaswamy recently proposed cutting 50% of the workforce by firing everyone whose Social Security number ends in an odd number.

Because the U.S. Congress sets federal spending levels, Republicans may balk at any erosion of their power, unions say.

Trump, Musk and Ramaswamy are “going to come up against congressional mandates and come up against the Constitution, and it’s going to set off this (debate) who has the right to spend money on behalf of the American people,” predicted Steve Lenkart, the executive director of the National Federation of Federal Employees, which represents over 100,000 federal employees.

The U.S. government is the country’s largest employer. While workers are concentrated in Washington, D.C., and nearby Maryland and northern Virginia, some of the greatest concentrations of federal workers can be found in areas like southern Oklahoma and northern Alabama, which are represented by Republicans in the House. [Continue reading…]