Workforce
Workers and partners make renewed push to block Trump’s dismantling of USAID
An effort to enjoin the Trump administration from placing thousands of USAID workers on administrative leave in advance of their eventual termination failed last month.
Pay & Benefits
Your guide to pay and benefits during a shutdown
Congress has just days to reach agreement on a deal to keep federal agencies open past Friday.
Workforce
Trump administration outlaws unions at TSA
The Homeland Security Department on Friday misrepresented the proportion of union officials performing representational work at the agency and claimed ousting labor organizations would make the agency “more agile.”
Management
Trump administration moves to politicize top HR officials following firing at IRS
Guidance from the Office of Personnel Management justified the decision by citing chief human capital officers’ role in implementing Biden-era diversity policies.
Workforce
MSPB orders temporary reinstatement of nearly 6,000 probationary workers at USDA
These Agriculture Department employees must be allowed back to their jobs for 45 days, as the Office of Special Counsel continues to investigate the Trump administration’s purge of recently hired, promoted or transferred federal employees.
Workforce
NTEU leaders vow to fight amid IRS return-to-office mandate
Internal Revenue Service employees have just one week to prepare for the end of telework at the agency, as management disregards union contract provisions governing the workplace flexibility.
Workforce
‘Prelude to privatization:’ Social Security confirms workforce reduction targets, continues to shutter offices
Despite most of the agency being exempt from deferred resignations and the government-wide hiring freeze, early retirement and Voluntary Separation Incentive Payments are now available to the entire agency workforce.
Pay & Benefits
TSP funds posted mixed results in February
Portfolios invested in American businesses weighed down an otherwise positive month for the federal government’s 401(k)-style retirement savings program.
Workforce
House Dems: Immediately reinstate fired feds
A group of 85 lawmakers called on the Office of Special Counsel to broaden its recommendation earlier this week to stay the firing of six employees on probationary periods to all probationary workers purged in recent days.
Workforce
Unions call on senators to ‘defund’ Trump’s workforce purges
A group comprised of 15 federal employee unions urged leaders on the Senate Appropriations Committee to issue a two-year moratorium on reductions in force as part of legislation to fund the government past March 14.
Breaking News
Transition
Top Social Security deputies leave amid rumored staff cuts
At least five of the eight regional heads have decided to leave as the mid-level worker-turned-acting commissioner is said to mull workforce reduction.
Pay & Benefits
23,000 federal prison workers are set to take pay cuts up to 25% next month
The U.S. Bureau of Prisons said the decision to severely curtail retention incentive payments across the federal carceral system stems from fixed cost increases associated with operating under a continuing resolution.
Oversight
Comptroller general says impoundment violations are a ‘high priority’ for GAO
Gene Dodaro said the Government Accountability Office will move “as quickly and thoroughly as possible” to enforce potential violations of the Impoundment Control Act as the Trump administration seeks to take a cleaver to federal spending.
Workforce
House Dems press administration on telework for military spouses
Although the Trump administration has issued guidance purportedly exempting the spouses of military service members from the president’s return-to-office mandate, lawmakers say some federal workers have heard differently.
Workforce
Judge, convinced of overseas employees’ safety, denies injunction against USAID
U.S. District Judge Carl Nichols’ ruling Friday clears the way for the Trump administration to place the vast majority of USAID’s workforce on administrative leave as it prepares an effort to the shutter the agency.
Workforce
‘Salting the earth’: Trump ends presidential management fellowships and federal executive boards
The move to kill a key pipeline for aspiring civil servants and regional agency councils reflects a desire to make it impossible to rebuild the federal bureaucracy, experts said.
Workforce
Social Security offers 40 probationary feds reassignments to avert blanket firings
Around 40 Social Security Administration employees were given eight hours—or until 4:30 p.m. Thursday—to decide whether to accept reassignments to a field or hearing office, teleservice center or payment center and avoid being swept up in the Trump administration’s purge of the federal workforce.
Pay & Benefits
Senate Dem reintroduces Equal COLA Act, and more
A weekly roundup of pay and benefits news.
Workforce
Social Security to close hearing office in New York
The decision to shutter the busy White Plains Office of Hearings Operations when its lease expires in May comes amid Elon Musk’s effort to cancel thousands of government leases.
Workforce