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Balloons and debris left over after Kamala Harris accepted the Democratic Party nomination for President in August of 2024.
About two-thirds of the staff of the Democratic National Committee have been laid off since the election. Carol Guzy/Zuma
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Last Thursday, workers with the Democratic National Committee (DNC) were told they would be laid off without severance and with little notice, according to the DNC's union. The cuts included some longtime workers of the organization, the union said.
With the election over, the DNC intends to downsize from about 680 staff to fewer than 200. Some degree of seasonality is expected in political campaign jobs. But this degree is unusual"and has affected DNC staffers who've stayed with the organization across several campaigns, or even multiple decades, according to the union.
One former DNC union member, whose last day was Friday, said she was shocked. "For a lot of folks, this is life-altering," said the laid-off employee, who spoke with Mother Jones on the condition of anonymity.
"Amongst the members that were laid off includes one deeply beloved union member who worked at the DNC for 38 years," the staffer said. "So I push back against the claim that this is normal, because we have members who have been here for decades who are shocked and angry and trying to figure out how they're going to survive this layoff."
In a statement to the Washington Post, the DNC said that "while the DNC has met the terms of the union agreement negotiated by the CBA, we share the entire DNC family's frustration and continue to provide resources to all members of the team to support them in this transition."
A DNC official told Mother Jones that all workers were informed of the possibility of layoffs as early as September 13, and that 95 percent of those being let go had a post-election end date in their offer letter.
But one laid-off worker who spoke with Mother Jones said that she, like some other employees, felt pressured into leaving a full-time role for a temporary contract position prior to the election. ...
Could it have been handled better? Absolutely.
This is not the way to win the vote of unions in subsequent elections.
