AFGE Local 2883 President on the CDC Workforce Crisis

Yolanda Jacobs, President of the American Federation of Government Employees Local 2883, joined the America's Work Force Union Podcast to describe what is happening inside the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention after more than a year of workforce reductions, contract repudiation and the systematic dismantling of worker rights.

Representing more than 2,400 CDC workers in Atlanta, Jacobs detailed how abrupt mass terminations erased critical public health work overnight, how disabled workers and veterans with PTSD are being denied legally required accommodations and how the collective bargaining agreement is no longer being honored. The agency has no permanent director, no functioning EEO office and a workforce whose morale and mental health she described as being in the gutter.

• The CDC's EEO office was eliminated on April 1, 2025, leaving no functioning system to process reasonable accommodation requests — yet workers with documented disabilities, including veterans with PTSD and employees hired specifically under Schedule A, are being denied telework accommodations and marked absent without leave for failing to report to campus.
• Terminations in February and April 2025 were executed with approximately 15 minutes between notification and system access cutoff, leaving no time for succession planning or file transfers — effectively erasing ongoing work in chronic disease prevention and other program areas with no recovery path.
• More than 200 Local 2883 members have filed EEO complaints over accommodation denials, generating millions of dollars in agency legal costs that directly contradict the administration's stated goal of eliminating waste, fraud and abuse, while the collective bargaining agreement is no longer being recognized by management.

The CDC Jacobs Once Knew, No Longer Exists

Yolanda Jacobs came to Georgia with one goal: to work for the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. She spent two decades there, became a union steward in 2021 and worked her way up to president of AFGE Local 2883 by July 2024.

A few months later, everything changed. According to Jacobs:

• The EEO office is gone.
• Local 2883’s collective bargaining agreement is not being honored.
• The process for employee reasonable accommodations has collapsed.
• Workers are being marked absent without leave for failing to report to a campus that their doctors say they cannot safely access.
• The agency has no permanent director.

Union Presence is Being Stripped Away

Jacobs was careful with her language when describing what happened to the union's collective bargaining agreement. She does not call it a “cancellation,” because cancellations carry penalties. What happened, she said, was a “reneging.” Management unilaterally stopped honoring the agreement, directed the union to vacate its office space, return agency-issued equipment and accept the end of payroll deductions. AFGE National has litigation underway. At the local level, management simply does not recognize the contract.

The Collapse of Reasonable Accommodations

During the pandemic, Jacobs said a large share of CDC employees shifted to full-time telework. For many workers with disabilities, that arrangement functioned as a de facto accommodation that never needed to be formally documented. When the return-to-office mandate arrived, those workers were told union protections would shield them. That assurance disappeared overnight, she said.

The EEO office that processed accommodation requests was eliminated on April 1, 2025. Staff were separated by August 2025. Jacobs explained that no functioning replacement system has been established. Workers — including those hired under Schedule A, meaning the agency knew about their disabilities at hire — are having accommodation requests reviewed by people with no medical expertise. Some have been marked absent without leave more than 30 times. Letters of reprimand and removal proposals are on the rise, she added.

The workers affected include veterans with PTSD — some of whom experienced a shooting on the CDC campus in August 2025 — pregnant workers with high-risk pregnancies, and employees who require around-the-clock care providers, Jacobs said. All are being told to report in person. Meanwhile, more than 200 members have filed EEO complaints over accommodation denials, generating millions of dollars in legal costs for an agency that claims to be cutting waste, she added.

Work That Is No Longer Getting Done

The terminations carried out in February and April 2025 were so abrupt that there was no time for succession planning, Jacobs said. Files were not transferred, and ongoing projects ended mid-stream, she said. Chronic disease prevention programs were hit particularly hard, with partner contacts severed and collaborative work abandoned. Some programs were eliminated based on mischaracterizations of what they actually did, she added.

What remains, Jacobs said, is an agency running slower, not faster. Travel approvals are delayed. Internal processes have added bureaucratic layers rather than shedding them. A restructured performance management system makes it nearly impossible to achieve the highest rating, positioning workers for low scores and potential future reductions in force, she added.

A Workforce That Has Lost Count of Who Has Left

Members are leaving through early retirement and voluntary separation at a pace Local 2883 is struggling to track, Jacobs said. Those who remain describe an environment where the work they loved has been subordinated to daily uncertainty. Jacobs said morale is in the gutter and that the mental health of the remaining workforce is a genuine concern.

The CDC has served the American public for roughly 80 years. Jacobs declined to speculate about its future but was direct about the present: the institution that exists today is not the one she joined. The difference matters, not just to the people inside it but to the public that depends on it.

More information on the fight to protect federal workers is available at afge.org.

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