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Trump budget would cut $27 million, 300 jobs from EEOC

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The Trump administration is doubling down on its efforts to roll back #MeToo, slashing $27 million from the EEOC in its proposed fiscal-year 2021 budget.

The obvious intent here: to hit victims of workplace discrimination even harder.

“It sends the totally wrong message to cut funding and staff to the agency that handles #MeToo harassment complaints,” said Rachel Shonfield, president of American Federation of Government Employees Council 216, the National Council of EEOC Locals.

The administration of a man dodging multiple allegations of the type of behavior that the EEOC exists to investigate is, for some unknown reason, proposing a 7.1 percent cut in funding for the commission, in the face of reports that it can take an hour to reach a live person at EEOC by telephone and months to set up an appointment with an EEOC investigator.

Congress increased funding for the EEOC in the FY 2020 budget, but the Trump administration, again, this is a huge surprise, has taken to slow-walking its way to filling open jobs.

And the new budget would cut nearly 15 percent of the jobs on the books from the EEOC workforce.

“Short-staffing EEOC shortchanges the public,” Shonfield said.

Story by Chris Graham

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