The Trump administration seems to have reconsidered after the public layoffs on the National Park Service and the ruthless media campaign of outdoor enthusiasts nationwide.
A plan that eliminates thousands of seasonal workers at beloved federal agencies seems to have reversed.
Last month, quasi-seasonal staff – people who charge admission fees, clean up trails and toilets and help rescue injured hikers – Received an email Say their job offer for the 2025 season has been abolished.
This week, a memo sent from the Home Office to park service officials said the agency could employ 7,700 seasonal employees this year, up from about 6,300 people employed in recent years.
If fully implemented, this would be a clear exception when the Trump administration cuts federal bureaucracy, which would be a government-wide hiring freeze that threatens to phase out the entire agency and provide “deferred resignation” to almost all federal workers and launch tens of thousands of fires to all federal workers. Professional staff.
Kristen Brengel, senior vice president of government affairs at nonprofit, said the park’s probation was “absolutely a victory” National Park Conservation Association.
Brenger said it proved “the advocates, the Park Rangers and others who shouted from the top that we needed to restore these positions”.
This memorandum only deals with temporary seasonal staff. It did not state that the National Park permanent workforce was fired Friday, with about 1,000 members. They were incorporated into the government’s diversified purge, with tens of thousands of trial federal employees, and most of them in the first few years of their careers had fewer job protections than more experienced employees. The trial staff accounts for about 5% of full-time employees in Park Services.
“We need to continue pushing until all positions in park services are restored and exemptions from general park services,” Brenger said.
Park Service officials did not respond to requests for comment.
After the fire opened on Friday, some called it the “Valentine’s Day Massacre”, Parks employees and outdoor enthusiasts participated in social media, saying their congressional deputies called their congressional deputies and tied up anything that would be in coordination. The movement to listen to anyone to resume work is arguably the most popular agent for the federal government’s work.
The U.S. National Parks (including Yosemite, Joshua Tree and the Grand Canyon) attracted more than 320 million visitors in 2023 and are a countless family vacation environment for generations of Americans.
After being fired on February 14, Yosemite maintenance worker Olek Chmura asked on Instagram if he and his paid colleagues were indeed the kind of wasteful spending Trump and his appointed efficiency expert Elon Musk eliminated.
“I only make $40,000 a year; Scratch S-I go out of the toilet with a putty knife almost every day.” “I’m the target somehow.”
Like many other social media Cris de Coeur, Chmura thinks he will be praised by some sympathetic friends and then lost in the vast online anxiety.
He was wrong.
By the beginning of this week, he had become an unexpected poster kid, in fact the spokesperson, as both sides from the aisle valued the anger of American Parks.
He suddenly juggled the interview request in every media organization that he seemed to have heard of, and he probably didn’t. Fox, NBC, local newspapers, and even Skynews from the UK. The photogenic patches of Yosemite Valley, with El Capitan’s rock side in the background, have become his personal TV studio.
He said that by Wednesday afternoon, he had conducted several interviews that day. He joked, “I was out of work, it was the busiest day of my life.”
Originally from Cleveland, 28, Chmura caught climbing bugs and made a pilgrimage to the classic American rock walls, for the last one: Yosemite.
“This is where I want to live. This is where I want to grow old, and it’s like where I spend the rest of my life,” Chmura said.
Like many self-proclaimed “dirt” climbers in Yosemite, he spent several years doing weird jobs to make ends meet before being hired by the park service. That means scraping the toilet, picking up used diapers and “squeezing urine” from the bathroom floor, he said. But it is almost the holy grail of a passionate climber.
“It’s a dream come true literally,” Chmura said.
So when the Trump administration arrived with its slam and burning crusade against the federal labor force, he was stunned and heartbroken.
“I really don’t understand why they’re attacking working-class Americans who never did these jobs to get rich,” he said. “It’s very confusing. Why are we?”
A conservative friend from Ohio met him on Instagram and TV and he reached out and said, “This is not my vote, this is… crazy,” Chmura said.
Because he is a full-time employee on probation, Chmura’s job is not in recovery. But he believes that pressure from the public and elected representatives may also be in his favor.
Meanwhile, uncertainty continues for the park supervisor. There were two people who asked for anonymity because they were worried about revenge that they had obtained permission to start re-convening the seasonal staff. They say they are trying to act quickly because no one knows when government guidance may suddenly change.
“Federal agencies, especially the human resources officials at parks, especially the parks,” said Tim Whitehouse, executive director of the nonprofit. Environmental Responsibility of Public Employees. “They are dealing with unprecedented levels of chaos.”
