Posts tagged merit-based
Trump administration wants to streamline federal worker layoffs
March 10, 2026 // The Office of Personnel Management, the federal government’s HR arm, published a proposed rule Thursday that it says will streamline the layoff process and put a new emphasis on job performance rankings rather than seniority. The new proposal will now undergo a 60-day comment period and has already faced pushback from the largest federal workers’ union, which has argued that the performance review system has been manipulated to cap how many employees receive high rankings.
OPM’s Final “Schedule Policy/Career” Rule is Published
February 17, 2026 // On February 6, 2026, the U.S. Office of Personnel Management (OPM) finalized its rule, Improving Performance, Accountability, and Responsiveness in the Civil Service, aka the “Schedule Policy/Career” rule, for federal employees in policy-influencing positions. Roles under this designation will be merit-based but at will and filled by presidential administrations instead of through the civil service system so that agencies can act quickly when serious performance or conduct failures arise. The rule takes effect March 9, 2026.
Trump lauds ‘tremendous’ federal workforce cuts. Good government group calls them ‘disturbing.’
January 21, 2026 // Going forward, the Trump administration is looking to make further changes for the federal workforce, including overhauls to the probationary period and federal hiring processes, as well as performance management and senior executive development. OPM’s Kupor said the upcoming changes will make government “leaner,” while making federal employees more results-oriented, accountable and efficient.
Trump accelerates push to reward loyalty in federal workforce
June 16, 2025 // Vinnie Vernuccio, president of the Institute for the American Worker and member of the transition team for the labor department in Trump’s first term, said that it is costly and time-consuming to try to fire workers, and a new rule to reclassify policy-related positions would make it easier for the administration to ensure their reforms aren’t hindered. “These career employees could throw sand in the gears for policies they don’t like,” Vernuccio said. Vernuccio added that the rule change would affect only career federal employees in policymaking roles, which OPM has estimated is about 50,000 positions, or about two percent of the Federal civilian workforce. “The sky is not going to fall,” Vernuccio said.
Pro-labor Republicans push Trump to rescind order busting most federal unions
April 3, 2025 // “This executive order, which ruthlessly strips collective bargaining agreements for over 1 million federal workers, is the most recent attack your administration has levied against our merit-based civil service in the effort to cut the workforce and replace them with political cronies,” they wrote. “While the CSRA does give the president the authority to limit collective bargaining agreements due to national security concerns, the executive order’s direction to terminate mass swaths of federal employee collective bargaining agreements is clearly intended to broadly dismantle the CSRA, which is specifically designed to grant federal employees the right to collective bargaining as a means to resolve workplace issues while maintaining the smooth functioning of government operations.”
Trump tells federal agencies to root out disguised DEI programs
January 27, 2025 // The American Federation of Government Employees, a union that represents 800,000 federal employees, called Trump's order an excuse for "firing civil servants."
The PRO Act helps forced unionization while the ERA helps workers
March 9, 2023 //