Large strides into the new hellscape.

Employees across the massive U.S. Health and Human Services Department began receiving notices of dismissal on Tuesday in an overhaul ultimately expected to lay off up to 10,000 people. The notices came just days after President Donald Trump moved to strip workers of their collective bargaining rights at HHS and other agencies throughout the government.

A twofer – union busting and making people sick.

Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. announced a plan last week to remake the department, which, through its agencies, is responsible for tracking health trends and disease outbreaks, conducting and funding medical research, and monitoring the safety of food and medicine, as well as for administering health insurance programs for nearly half of the country.

Well who needs any of that, right? Who needs disease outbreaks tracked? Who needs medical research? Who needs safe food and medicine? Who needs health insurance in a privatized health system?

At the FDA, dozens of staffers who regulate drugs and tobacco products received notices, including the entire office responsible for drafting new regulations for electronic cigarettes and other tobacco products. The notices came as the FDA’s tobacco chief was removed from his position.

Regulation is bad. The market should be free to add nicotine to cookies and candy. Get the people hooked early: $$$.

At the CDC, most employees have not been unionized, but interest rose sharply this year as the Trump administration took steps to reduce the federal workforce. Roughly 2,000 CDC employees in Atlanta belonged to the American Federation of Government Employees local bargaining unit, with hundreds more who had petitioned to join in recent days being added.

But on Thursday night, Trump, a Republican, signed an executive order that would end collective bargaining for a large number of federal agencies, including the CDC and other health agencies.

Haha! Fuck you, federal workers: the big boss says you can’t have unions at all!