The Trump Administration has proposed to amend civil service regulations to categorize career employees with important policy-determining, policy-making, policy-advocating, or confidential duties ‘at-will employees’ to swiftly remove them.
“This rule empowers federal agencies to swiftly remove employees in policy-influencing roles for poor performance, misconduct, corruption, or subversion of Presidential directives, without lengthy procedural hurdles,” the White House said.
The White House described the proposal by President Donald Trump’s Office of Personnel Management (OPM) as action to implement Trump’s Executive Action titled “Restoring Accountability to Policy-Influencing Positions Within the Federal Workforce.”
“These employees will serve as at-will employees, without access to cumbersome adverse action procedures or appeals, overturning Biden Administration regulations that protected poor performing employees,” a fact sheet said.
The announcement comes as legal battles play out in courts against the Administration’s shutting down of federal bodies and its ousting of thousands of employees.
The Administration says it is downsizing the government as part of its efforts to make the federal government efficient and more accountable.
Billionaire Elon Musk and his team at Department of Government Efficiency has been recommending ways to downsize the federal bureaucracy which usually involved removal of thousands of employees. The actions have been challenged in courts.
According to the White House, line federal employees who implement those policies, like Border Patrol agents or wage and hour inspectors, will generally be excluded.
These employees will keep their competitive status and are not required to personally or politically support the President, but must faithfully implement the law and the administration’s policies, the fact sheet said.
OPM estimates 50,000 positions will ultimately be moved into Schedule Policy/Career, approximately 2% of the Federal workforce.
The proposed rule does not directly move positions into Schedule Policy/Career. That will be done by a subsequent executive order after a final rule issues, as per the fact sheet.
American Federation of Government Employees, a union representing more 750,000 employees, has termed the step as a move to corrupt the federal government.
National President Everett Kelley said in a statement, “President Trump’s action to politicize the work of tens of thousands of career federal employees will erode the government’s merit-based hiring system and undermine the professional civil service that Americans rely on.”
The AFGE sued the U.S. administration in January over its actions.
