Federal employees working in a Downtown Brooklyn office building are dealing with “disgraceful” office conditions and mistreatment, union members and elected officials said at a June 30 rally.
Elected officials — including U.S. Reps Nydia Velázquez (D-Brooklyn/Queens), Dan Goldman (D-Brooklyn), Grace Meng (D-Queens), and Gregory Meeks (D-Queens) — joined members of the National Treasury Employees Union outside 2 MetroTech Center to highlight working conditions at the IRS Taxpayer Assistance Center, located in the office building, and the federal governments’ alleged refusal to accommodate disabled and sick federal workers.
Since President Donald Trump issued the return-to-office mandate for all federal employees on Jan. 20, federal workers nationwide have reported overcrowded office spaces, supply shortages, and unsafe working environments, while disabled and sick civil servants have been denied reasonable work accommodations.
During a visit to the office last month, Velázquez, Meng, and Meeks said they observed exposed cords and wires across the floor, posing severe safety hazards as well as overcrowded workspaces. About 250 civil servants occupy the space, sharing small desks with their co-workers and working from their own laptops. The office also lacks sufficient supplies and designated conference rooms or spaces for conducting audit interviews, which raises privacy concerns.
Velásquez said what they saw during their visit in May was “disgraceful.”
“People packed into spaces that aren’t meant for work, exposed wires, no desks, no equipment, no privacy,” Velásquez recounted. “Imagine the IRS dealing with our personal information, no privacy, folks returning from medical leave with no support. A cancer patient forced to use up her sick leave. Pregnant employees denied remote work.”
Creating a deliberately difficult work environment, elected officials said, was part of the Trump administration’s attempt to push federal workers to resign or retire. Project 2025, a manifesto written by the hyper-conservative think tank the Heritage Foundation, calls for a significant reduction in the number of federal employees.
“Donald Trump and his DOGE office are going after federal workers, making the workplace so toxic that people are pushed out, and they are targeting the agencies they have always wanted to dismantle, like the IRS and CFPB,” Velásquez said. “Let me be clear: if you want government to work, you need to respect the people doing the work.”
The most egregious of all, Meng said, was denying reasonable telework accommodations for disabled individuals and those with severe health conditions, referring to one of her constituents, IRS worker Allison Jones, who is undergoing cancer treatment and was denied to work remotely.
“These employees need to be given all the requested accommodations that they are requiring; forcing people to come in when they’re undergoing crucial medical care is cruel and unconscionable,” said Meng.
Meng’s colleague, Meek, said the IRS had a moral and legal obligation to treat federal workers with respect.
“There are two critical federal laws: the Rehabilitation Act of 1973 and the Pregnancy Discrimination Act of 1978. Under these laws, the IRS has both a legal obligation and a moral responsibility to provide reasonable accommodations to employees with disabilities and pregnant workers,” Meek said. “That’s why we’re out here today, because these are not suggestions. This is the law.”
The IRS did not immediately return request for comment.
Dan Goldman said creating a challenging work environment for federal agencies was just another chapter in Trump’s effort to undermine and denigrate the “terrific” federal workers.
“[The Trump administration] is not directly cutting benefits, but what they are doing is making the conditions of work so terrible that the fine men and women who work for our federal Government are forced to either retire or quit or operate in completely unacceptable conditions,” Goldman said.
IRS employee Eranissa Almanzar is one of the thousands of probationary federal employees who were fired by the Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE)— which was then headed by tech billionaire and civilian Elon Musk — and then reinstated after a judge’s ruling in March.
While Almanzar was grateful to be back at work, she said the working conditions were “unacceptable.”
“Some of my disabled co-workers are forced to be working in person. Disability rights need to be respected across all workplaces, especially in the federal sector,” she said.
Larry Rosenblum has worked for the IRS for 38 years and has been disabled for seven years. Rosenblum, who is in a wheelchair, shared that his position required “very little, if any,” customer interaction.
After Trump issued the return-to-office mandate, Rosenblum was told he had to return to the office despite his disability. He said he loves his job and has received excellent performance evaluations from his supervisor, but is struggling.
“I was told that if I cannot come back to the office and work every day, then I either stay home and not get paid or use my accrued annual sick leave,” he said. “While my case is still under consideration, I have to say I love my job. I’ve considered retirement and rather spend more time being productive than just sitting at home in a wheelchair,” said Rosenblum.
Jim Savage, an attorney at the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau said issues at CFPB were somewhat different. CFPB employees in Manhattan, Washington D.C., Atlanta, Chicago, and San Francisco have been locked out of their offices since February.
Savage pointed out that since its inception in 2011, the CFPB has recuperated over $21 billion for taxpayres.
“We currently have matters in which we are dealing with disputes of over hundreds of millions of dollars in consumer harm,” Savage explained.
However, because of the lockout, CFPB employees can’t conduct core functions.
“It has nothing to do with efficiency. Denying people their reasonable accommodations doesn’t save anybody any money,” Savage said. “It is about putting up barriers to prevent our important work from being done.”
