Posts tagged OPM
Key parts of federal employee performance overhaul ‘non-negotiable,’ OPM says
August 5, 2026 // But some aspects of performance management are still negotiable, according to OPM, as long as they remain consistent with both the final rule and any applicable laws. Those include employees’ informal requests for a reconsideration of their rating; rules on awards and recognition programs; and feedback procedures between supervisors and employees.
Arbitrator restores telework for IRS workers
July 22, 2026 // The Internal Revenue Service withdrew from participating in the National Treasury Employees Union’s grievance against the agency for its 2025 return-to-office push in March, forcing independent arbitrator Christopher Shulman to conduct proceedings with management in absentia.
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.
NTEU sues IRS over destruction of employees’ pro-union decorations
June 18, 2026 // The Internal Revenue Service last month issued a directive barring employees from posting flyers and other decorations related to the National Treasury Employees Union, which the union says violates the First Amendment.
Trump strips civil service protections from thousands of workers
June 8, 2026 // The reclassification is part of a wider campaign by Trump to downsize the civil service and realign it toward his policy goals. The administration has developed rules to have federal employees sign nondisclosure agreements, extend suitability standards, end certain layoff protections, cap performance ratings and weaken safeguards for probationary workers. Office of Personnel Management Director Scott Kupor told reporters the administration needs people in policy-making positions willing to carry out the president’s directives. It doesn’t matter what political views those federal employees may have, he said. “But if you allow those views to basically interfere with your willingness to actually carry out lawful orders and policy directives of the administration, then this provides a mechanism, obviously, for people in those agencies to be able to be removed effectively at will,” Kupor said.
Trump administration proposes having all federal workers sign NDAs
May 28, 2026 // But the federal workforce’s largest union, the American Federation of Government Employees, decried the draft as an attempt to silence staffers, noting the proposal “sweeps in an extraordinarily broad category of information.” The union said it believes the administration will push agencies to require their employees to sign the NDA and then fire those who refuse.
Federal union projects to lose ‘tens of thousands’ of members, court filing shows
April 26, 2026 // The National Treasury Employees Union said in a filing Thursday that President Donald Trump’s April 2025 executive order on exclusions from federal labor-management relations programs and subsequent Office of Personnel Management rulemaking has resulted in “irreparable harm” to the labor group. The U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit previously ruled that harm of that kind was merely “speculative because [the harms] would materialize only after an agency terminates a collective-bargaining agreement.” Since the appeals court issued that opinion in May 2025, OPM told agencies to terminate their collective bargaining agreements with the NTEU, and nine agencies have issued letters doing just that, according to the new court filing. Roughly half of the workers that NTEU represented before Trump’s order came from these agencies, the labor group said.
DoD moves to end most collective bargaining agreements
April 17, 2026 // While court orders temporarily blocked the Trump administration’s attempts to rescind collective bargaining rights from federal employees in some cases, a recent administration memo urged agencies to move forward with implementing the executive order.
VA re-terminates AFGE contract for 300K employees, despite court order to restore it
March 30, 2026 // The Office of Personnel Management initially told agencies to hold off on terminating labor contracts with unions while legal challenges were still pending. But OPM reversed course last month, when it advised agencies to proceed with either amending or fully canceling their collective bargaining agreements. In granting her preliminary injunction, DuBose wrote that she did not determine whether the Trump administration exceeded its legal authority when it issued its executive orders rolling back collective bargaining rights. The legality of the executive order is still under review by the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals and the District of Columbia Court of Appeals.