New York, United States - Recent An American labor expert has warned that U.S. President Donald Trump's sweeping reductions to the federal workforce, while presented as cost-saving measures, may ultimately prove costly due to potential legal battles and diminished service capacity. The Trump Administration is aggressively shrinking the federal workforce, the nation's largest employer, through a combination of buyouts and dismissals, targeting probationary employees who have limited job security, according to U.S. media reports on Friday. According to the reports, over 10,000 federal workers have already been dismissed across various agencies, including the Department of Veterans Affairs, the Department of the Interior, the Department of Energy, the Forest Service, the National Institutes of Health, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, and the Environmental Protection Agency. The Department of Education and the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau have also conducted layoffs. The Hill estimates that up to 200,000 probationary employees could be affected. Arthur Wheaton, Director of Labor Studies at the School of Industrial and Labor Relations at Cornell University, highlighted that federal workers, especially temporary employees, can be fired relatively easily due to limited protections, with unionized workers having some recourse through arbitration. The government retains significant authority to carry out layoffs and restructuring despite efforts to safeguard workers. Wheaton suggested there will be costs associated with the ensuing court battles, though workforce cuts may balance these out in the long term. The labor scholar noted that President Trump's actions affecting key institutions have severely limited traditional avenues for negotiation and resolution. Wheaton also highlighted potential repercussions of reducing federal workers, such as increased costs and risks in critical areas, noting that some approaches could have unintended consequences. Shotlist: New York City, USA - Recent: FILE: New York City, USA - October 2024 1. Various of port scene, Statue of Liberty; New York City, USA - Recent 2. SOUNDBITE (English) Arthur Wheaton, director, Labor Studies, School of Industrial and Labor Relations, Cornell University (starting with shot 1/partially overlaid with shots 3-5): "I think it's hard to say for the long term whether it will save a lot of money. It will not save a lot of money if they try to maintain the same level of service, so you may be getting less from the smaller workforce, and what we're currently getting in some of the programs. But I think it's a little too soon to say, and it's going to be real expensive for the lawsuits and the fights that are going to go on for long term. And it creates an incredible amount of tension and stress within the system, which is partly by design."; [SHOTS OVERLAYING SOUNDBITE] FILE: Washington D.C., USA - Date Unknown 3. White House; FILE: Washington D.C., USA - Date Unknown 4. Various of Capitol building; FILE: New York City, USA - October 2024 5. Various of street view, U.S. national flags, traffic, buildings; [SHOTS OVERLAYING SOUNDBITE] FILE: New York City, New York, USA - October 2024 6. Traffic; pedestrians; buildings; New York City, USA - Recent 7. SOUNDBITE (English) Arthur Wheaton, director, Labor Studies, School of Industrial and Labor Relations, Cornell University (ending with shot 8): "There's a cost in terms of the man power fighting to do this. There's a cost for paying the attorneys or paying the people as part of this. But whether that balances out with the tens of thousands of people they get rid of, their savings by not paying that many workforce and they're trying to get as many as they can. They had 75,000 people take the early buyouts for what they had. So that's going to create some savings post-September."; FILE: USA - Exact Location and Date Unknown 8. Various of U.S. dollar banknotes being printed; FILE: New York City, USA - Date Unknown 9. Various of pedestrians, street scenes; New York City, USA - Recent 10. SOUNDBITE (English) Arthur Wheaton, director, Labor Studies, School of Industrial and Labor Relations, Cornell University (ending with shots 11-12): "Under normal circumstances, the president would try to make changes through collective bargaining. President Trump doesn't seem to favor that. In the private sector, they have the National Labor Relations Board. And President Trump has already fired two people from the National Labor Relations Board. So many of the regular tools that you would use have already been neutralized or at least severely hindered already by President Trump."; FILE: Washington D.C., USA - Date Unknown 11. Various of White House; 12. Various of Capitol building, U.S. national flag; FILE: New York City, USA - Date Unknown 13. Pedestrians; New York City, USA - Recent 14. SOUNDBITE (English) Arthur Wheaton, director, Labor Studies, School of Industrial and Labor Relations, Cornell University (starting with shot 13/partially overlaid with shots 15-17): "And a lot of it depends. It could be extremely costly if all of the folks that were fired in the Forestry Department for fighting fires are not replaced, you can have a wildfire and whatever savings you thought you were going to get, you can lose in property damage. You already had the reporting about the department of energy employees that handle the nuclear weapons. If you have a mistake at that level, that can be catastrophic in terms of the costs associated with that. I think that the goal is to make a big splash. They want to have a lot of different avenues to try to make reductions or changes to show that he's trying to do something. A lot of them were not necessarily completely thought out, but the goal is to try to say, look, we're trying."; [SHOTS OVERLAYING SOUNDBITE] FILE: Los Angeles, California, USA - June 2024 15. Various of cityscape; FILE: San Francisco, USA - Date Unknown 16. Various of pedestrians, traffic; FILE: New York City, USA - October 2024 17. Buildings, traffic; [SHOTS OVERLAYING SOUNDBITE] FILE: New York City, USA - Date Unknown 18. People in shopping street. [Restriction - No access Chinese mainland]