Terminated 18F employees filed a class-action appeal with the U.S. Merit Systems Protection Board on Wednesday. Douglas Rissing / Getty Images
Fired GSA 18F employees appeal to have jobs reinstated
The Trump administration has endeavored to streamline the agency’s contracting and procurement processes while putting in mechanisms to shed its workforce.
Former employees of the General Services Administration’s 18F unit, an in-house consultancy that helps agencies with their technology matters, filed an appeal to reinstate their employment after their positions were eliminated in March in a move that entirely wiped out that office.
The terminated employees filed a class-action appeal with the U.S. Merit Systems Protection Board, they announced Wednesday.
GSA lacked a “valid reason” for the RIF and was “targeted to retaliate against” perceived political affiliations, their support of DEI and actions to “blow the whistle on management’s improper handling and transition of control concerning sensitive data and systems,” the group argued in the appeal.
“The elimination of 18F has consequences not only for those of us who lost our jobs, but for the American people we each took an oath to serve. From streamlining federal permitting to making it easier for everyday people to file their taxes, our interrupted projects — already funded and underway — were exactly the type of technology modernization that DOGE claims to want,” they continued.
The appeal pathway via the Merit Systems Protection Board was paved out by an administrative judge earlier this week. The employees are represented by Mehri & Skalet, a law firm based in Washington, D.C.
The 18F office was deemed “non-critical,” wrote Thomas Shedd, director of GSA’s Technology Transformation Services to staff at the time of its dismantling.
The Trump administration under the Department of Government Efficiency has moved to reshape GSA by scaling back various climate and diversity initiatives, centralizing procurement authority and pushing for faster, less regulated federal contracting procedures as part of a broader effort to align government operations with GOP deregulation priorities.
Over 2,100 employees at GSA have taken the Trump administration up on its deferred resignation offer, according to two current agency employees.
The shedding of workers comes even as the administration looks to put more responsibility on the agency, which plays a key role in government-wide contracting, technology and real estate, serving as the federal government’s landlord, buyer and tech support across agencies.
Editor's note: This article has been updated to note that the class-action appeal was filed on Wednesday.