Independence park and local FAA office caught in federal firing spree
The Trump Administration’s efforts to trim the number of federal employees reached Philadelphia in the past week.
The Trump administration’s mass firings of federal workers have reached the Philadelphia area, with two employees dismissed at Independence National Historical Park and at least one at a local Federal Aviation Administration office, according to union officials.
At the national park, which was already operating about 30 workers below its budgeted staffing, two recent hires — both park rangers — received termination notices late last week, and a number of planned hirings have been rescinded.
The popular park was already lacking enough rangers, guides, and maintenance and safety workers to operate at full strength, said Edward Welch, a ranger at the park and president of Local 2058 of the American Federation of Government Employees.
“We’re in a hole. As it is now, half the historic structures are closed,” Welch said. “If this continues, I can’t fathom what other structures we’re going to need to close, because we can’t function on a wing and a prayer. We’re bare bones.”
Independence National Historical Park includes Independence Hall, the Liberty Bell and other attractions covering a swath of Old City and Society Hill. It attracts 2.6 million people annually and is expected to see a surge of visitors during the nation’s 250th anniversary celebrations next year.
The park “desperately” needs its usual seasonal hires this summer, but those appear to have been canceled, Welch said.
The firings of recently hired federal employees have also hit aviation facilities and FAA offices, including those serving Philadelphia and Pittsburgh’s airports.
Three people who work for the FAA’s Office of Aviation Safety in Pennsylvania lost their jobs, according to their union, Professional Aviation Safety Specialists (PASS). One was based in Tinicum, where part of Philadelphia International Airport is located, and the other two in Brentwood, near Pittsburgh.
The Trump administration has reportedly dismissed more than 10,000 federal workers across several agencies as part of a plan to shrink the government and cut spending. Many, but not all, have less than one or two years on the job (what’s called probationary status) and thus can’t appeal their terminations as more senior federal workers can.
The agencies that are seeing some of the biggest cuts are the Department of Energy, the National Institutes of Health, the Department of Veterans Affairs, and the Department of the Interior. Interior includes the Bureau of Land Management and the National Park Service, which has been hit with about 1,000 firings, per USA Today.
A termination letter received by an employee at Gettysburg National Military Park. (Courtesy of AFGE Local 2058)One of the people dismissed from Independence National Historical Park had been there at least eight months, Welch said. “She was doing a wonderful job, and sadly, had to go back home to Missouri or something,” he said. “We can’t do without her.”
The park buildings that are currently closed include Declaration House on Market Street, which is the reconstruction of the building where Thomas Jefferson wrote the Declaration of Independence, and the Second Bank of the United States, which contains hundreds of portraits of prominent early Americans. Both need major renovations, Welch said.
The union has also heard that five employees were fired at Steamtown National Historical Park in Scranton, five at the national park in Gettysburg, and five at Hopewell Furnace in Berks County, among others, he said.
“We’re getting these reports literally by the hour,” Welch said. “It’s a destruction of the Park Service. It’s an absolute destruction. These folks are park rangers, maintenance people. They’re not Washington bureaucrats.”
The National Park Service has said 5,000 seasonal employees will be exempted from the administration’s hiring freeze, but Welch said job offers have actually been withdrawn and he’s seen no sign that hiring will be restarted.
“We’re not hearing anything from our supervisors and managers here, any good news at all. We’re reaching out to our local politicians and Congress, but there’s been no promises or anything,” he said.
Independence National Historic Park once had more than 200 employees and is now budgeted for about 180, he said. It currently has about 150 staffers.
Philadelphia is expected to draw millions of visitors in 2026 for several events: yearlong celebrations of the U.S. Semiquincentennial, or 250th anniversary; six World Cup games at Lincoln Financial Field in June and July; and Major League Baseball’s All-Star Game in July.
Gov. Josh Shapiro has proposed spending $65 million on anniversary events and Mayor Cherelle Parker has proposed adding $40 million in city funds. President Donald Trump also last month created a White House task force to plan a 250th anniversary celebration.
But it’s hard to see how the park will be able to prepare for and cope with the flood of visitors without a boost in the number of workers, Welch said.
“We were anticipating hiring a lot more staff, and now staff’s being taken away,” he said.
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Up to 400 people have been fired at the FAA, out of a total staff of 45,000, Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy said Monday.
Nationally, they include 132 members of the PASS union: 59 from FAA’s Technical Operations division, 39 from Flight Standards, 19 from Mission Support and 15 from Air Traffic Services, a union spokesperson told Billy Penn.
An airplane pulls up to a gate at Philadelphia International Airport. (Danya Henninger/Billy Penn)The three who lost their jobs in Pennsylvania were with Aviation Safety, the union said. That office oversees aircraft airworthiness, certification of pilots, mechanics and others, and safety oversight of commercial airlines.
The firings came just two weeks after the crash of a medical transport jet near Northeast Philadelphia Airport that killed six people on the plane and one on the ground. Duffy visited Philly and spoke at a press conference following the crash.
It also follows last month’s devastating collision of an American Airlines plane and a military helicopter in Washington, D.C., in which 67 people died, making it the nation’s deadliest crash in more than two decades. Another crash in Alaska earlier this month killed 10 people.
David Spero, national president of PASS, said the FAA probationary employees had been fired without cause, and not based on performance or conduct, and he warned that the agency was already challenged by understaffing.
“Staffing decisions should be based on an individual agency’s mission-critical needs. To do otherwise is dangerous when it comes to public safety,” he said. “And it is especially unconscionable in the aftermath of three deadly aircraft accidents in the past month.”
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