Author Archive
Workforce
Trump’s edict making 8,000 feds at-will employees draws swift outcry
Agencies have just one week to reclassify thousands of federal workers in purportedly policy-related roles into the new Schedule Policy/Career, stripping them of most civil service protections.
Workforce
Trump signs order moving thousands of federal employees into Schedule F
Roughly 8,000 career federal employees were stripped of their civil service protections Wednesday, making them effectively at-will employees.
Pay & Benefits
OPM to set new requirements to ‘verify’ FEHBP enrollments
Newly published regulations would implement a 2025 law enacted in response to a GAO report that found the government could spend up to $1 billion annually on health benefits for people who are no longer eligible to receive them.
Pay & Benefits
TSP funds kept climbing in May
Each of the portfolios in the federal government’s 401(k)-style retirement savings program gained value last month.
Workforce
OPM moves to allow agencies to promote workers faster
Officials said the nearly 80-year-old requirement that federal employees serve in their current positions for at least one year before they may be promoted is “outdated.”
Workforce
Supreme Court rejects lower court bid to review immigration judge gag order
Justices reversed an appeals court decision that would have greenlit a fact-finding expedition into whether President Trump had effectively nullified review of personnel policies under the 1978 Civil Service Reform Act.
Workforce
OPM proposes requiring all feds to sign an NDA
Experts warned the measure, when combined with the federal HR agency’s new power to target employees’ suitability for federal employment, creates a new pathway for Trump administration officials to purge those deemed insufficiently loyal to the president.
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Pay & Benefits
NTEU asks Trump administration to ease telework rules as gas prices spike
The union also called for an increase in gas reimbursement rates as the president’s war against Iran continues to disrupt the world’s oil supply.
Workforce
Appeals court upholds order reinstating VA’s union contracts
A unanimous three-judge panel found that only a district judge’s requirement that the Veterans Affairs Department “comply” with its collective bargaining agreements should be put on hold while litigation proceeds.
Workforce
House GOP probes agency settlements with federal workers
Republican members of the House Oversight and Reform Committee argued agencies should settle less often with feds who allege prohibited personnel practices, but experts say the government acts similarly to private sector litigants.
Workforce
Feds wary of skills-based hiring survey after 15 months of attacks
The combination of a lack of outreach around a newly deployed survey of federal workers’ skillsets with the recent flood of layoffs, purges and reorganizations has made some reluctant to participate in the bipartisan initiative.
Pay & Benefits
Dems introduce bill to protect feds’ credit scores during shutdowns
Sen. Mark Kelly, D-Ariz., said he was inspired to draft the legislation after hearing from TSA workers whose inability to pay their bills during the 78-day partial government shutdown hurt their credit scores even after they began receiving back pay.
Pay & Benefits
TSP funds returned to growth in April
Each of the portfolios in the federal government’s 401(k)-style retirement savings program finished last month in the black.
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Workforce
How an obscure federal agency threatens to upend union disputes
The Federal Mediation and Conciliation Service has begun delaying and denying union requests for arbitrators to hear grievance cases, a move that has shocked longtime experts.
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Workforce
EPA workers disciplined for dissent letter get legal aid from whistleblower groups
Lawyers for Good Government and the Government Accountability Project announced Tuesday that the two organizations would represent EPA workers who signed a 2025 “declaration of dissent” as they challenge their discipline before the Merit Systems Protection Board.
Pay & Benefits
House GOP on Trump’s 2027 pay freeze: ‘That’s politics’
Republicans on the House Appropriations Committee last week beat back multiple attempts to increase federal workers’ pay next year and restore their workplace rights.
Pay & Benefits
OPM proposes hazard pay for more federal firefighting activities
Under recently unveiled regulations, federal wildland firefighters would be eligible for a 25% increase in pay when they work on prescribed burns, a proactive tool to mitigate the risk of wildfires.
Pay & Benefits
Senators demand OPM withdraw plan to access feds’ medical records
More than a dozen Democratic lawmakers warned that a little-scrutinized proposal to collect claims-level data related to the Federal Employees Health Benefits and Postal Service Health Benefits programs could violate federal law and doctor-client confidentiality.
Workforce
Labor groups sue to block FLRA’s political seizure of union elections
Federal employee unions warned that fast-tracked changes centralizing control of union representation petitions with the agency’s political appointees will bog down, rather than streamline, the election process.
Workforce
Hegseth orders termination of union contracts
Though some unions within the Defense Department are protected from the action by federal court orders, the American Federation of Government Employees’ locals remain vulnerable.
