Posts tagged Merit Systems Protection Board
Nation’s largest federal employee union campaigned against veterans benefits package
July 23, 2026 // The American Federation of Government Employees argued that the Republican-led legislation, which bundles together more than 60 veterans bills, contains partisan measures that will send more veterans to the private, for-profit health system outside the traditional VA network of hospitals and clinics for their care. The AFGE represents approximately 300,000 VA employees, according to the union. AFGE was joined by dozens of other labor unions opposing the bill.
Federal employees face reality of Schedule Policy/Career
July 8, 2026 // Trump administration officials have said the creation of Schedule Policy/Career aims to improve employee accountability and ensure the federal workforce is carrying out the president’s policy agenda. A senior administration official last month told reporters, “As long as employees are performing their job duties in a competent, professional manner,” then reclassified federal employees “have nothing to be afraid of.”
OPM finalizes performance review overhaul for federal employees
July 7, 2026 // Along with limiting how many employees can be deemed high performers, OPM’s final rule also eliminates “level 2” of the government’s five-level scale for employee performance ratings; removes the ability for employees to contest their performance ratings through grievance and arbitration proceedings; and requires OPM to review agencies’ performance rating systems every other year. Supervisors’ performance reviews will now be tied, in part, to “driving a culture of accountability,” and they will have to complete additional training on the new rating system. Also under the final rule, agency officials will no longer be required to review any “unsatisfactory” performance ratings.
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.
Trump’s mass probationary firings were illegal, judge concludes, but he won’t order re-hirings
September 17, 2025 // Normally, Alsup said, his findings would require the Trump administration to return all probationers to their jobs. He noted the Supreme Court has specifically rejected such relief, however, and “too much water has now passed under the bridge.” Some employees have found new jobs, while some agencies have engaged in reorganizations that have eliminated the roles altogether. “The terminated probationary employees have moved on with their lives and found new jobs,” Alsup said. “Many would no longer be willing or able to return to their posts.” Instead, the judge once again ordered agencies to, by Nov. 14, send letters to all fired probationary employees that state “you were not terminated on the basis of your personal performance.”
OPM calls for quicker firings, more stringent performance standards
June 25, 2025 // Don Kettl, professor emeritus and former dean of the University of Maryland School of Public Policy. “In the case of any downsizing in government, training is always the first to go. So is there going to be investment to try to make happen what they’re proposing?” The former HR official said the plan to reduce performance improvement plans to 30 days belies the overall memo as a “red herring.” “If you can’t articulate why someone’s failing and you only give them 30 days to show that they’re no longer failing, it becomes a procedural widget to sustain a termination,” they said. “[And] the Trump administration has done such a thorough job in the last five months cutting the balls off of unions—which is a mistake, because they help provide due process—and the Merit Systems Protection Board, the [Equal Employment Opportunity Commission] and [Office of Special Counsel], it’s going to be hard for current employees under these constraints to win anything.”
Backgrounder: Trump Civil Service Reform Proposed Rule
April 27, 2025 // On April 23, 2025, OPM proposed a new rule to improve accountability for federal career employees, especially those in policy roles. The rule implements President Trump’s Executive Order 14171, which he signed on his first day in office. Executive Order 14171 explicitly directed OPM to render civil service regulations implemented during the Biden administration inoperative, citing the President’s authority to manage the executive branch. Among other things, the rule would create a new job category called Schedule Policy/Career in the excepted service for policy-influencing positions, making them at-will employees and, therefore, meaningfully accountable for their performance and conduct.
Unions Form Pro Bono Legal Network for Federal Workers Targeted by Trump
April 16, 2025 // “We knew there would be a lot of quick and valiant legal work in the federal courts, but we knew there was a chance you’d have to go to the employee agencies to protect the workers’ rights,” Deborah Greenfield, the network’s executive director, said in an interview. One challenge for the network and their potential clients is that some of these bodies, like the National Labor Relations Board, are themselves in a state of limbo as courts weigh whether Mr. Trump has the power to fire appointed board members.
US Supreme Court clears way for Trump to remove two Democratic members of labor boards for now
April 10, 2025 // Trump's efforts to remove Harris have threatened to leave the board without a two-seat quorum - making it unable to decide cases - after the term of Democratic member Raymond Limon expired on February 28. In ruling in favor of Harris, Contreras said the statutory protections for board members from being removed without cause conform with the Constitution in light of a 1935 Supreme Court precedent in a case called Humphrey's Executor v. United States. In that case, the court ruled that a president lacks unfettered power to remove commissioners of the U.S. Federal Trade Commission, faulting then-President Franklin Roosevelt's firing of an FTC commissioner for policy differences.
Union sues DHS to protect TSA screeners’ collective bargaining rights
March 18, 2025 // The lawsuit accuses the Trump administration of violating the Administrative Procedure Act’s prohibition on “arbitrary and capricious” decision-making, as well as breaching their contractual obligations under the 2024 collective bargaining agreement and in so doing, violating union members’ due process rights under the Fifth Amendment. The union also brings a First Amendment claim, arguing that the Trump administration’s decision to revoke TSA screeners’ collective bargaining rights was in retaliation for the union’s other lawsuits against the executive branch, most notably their challenge of the mass firing of probationary workers across government. A federal judge on Thursday issued a preliminary injunction in that case, requiring agencies to reinstate tens of thousands of improperly terminated workers.