AFGE and the American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees (AFSCME) filed suit against the Trump administration, challenging efforts to politicize the civil service through illegal executive orders.
The lawsuit asserts that President Trump illegally exceeded his authority in attempting to unilaterally roll back a regulation issued by President Biden last year that protects the rights of civil servants.
The suit also names the Office of Personnel Management (OPM) for its role in failing to adhere to the Administrative Procedure Act, which governs the process by which federal agencies develop and issue regulations, in its attempts to roll back this same regulation.
The regulation, issued by OPM in April of last year, protected federal workers from being politicized by establishing procedures for moving individuals or positions from the competitive service to the excepted service, from one category of excepted service to another, or from a position with civil service protections to a position without those protections. The rule also added the definition of “confidential, policy-determining, policy making, policy advocating” to only apply to certain noncareer political appointees. It also amended regulations so that civil servants involuntarily moved to a new classification maintain their civil service protections.
Trump on his first day in office Trump rescinded Biden’s April 2024 executive order without following the steps required by law and reinstated his controversial policy Schedule F, now renamed Schedule Policy/Career, to strip hundreds of thousands of federal workers of their civil service protections.
The EO will corrupt the federal government by eliminating employees’ due process rights so employees can be fired for political reasons. Replacing the non-partisan, highly skilled federal workers with unqualified political cronies will only hurt the American people who depend on the expertise and professionalism of career federal workers.
In a recent Wall Street Journal poll, more than 60% of voters said they are opposed to Trump firing career civil-service workers and replacing them with hand-picked appointees.
“AFGE is filing suit with our partner union today to protect the integrity of the American people’s government,” said AFGE National President Everett Kelley. “Together, we can stop the efforts to fire hundreds of thousands of experienced, hard-working Americans who have dedicated their careers to serving their country and prevent these career civil servants from being replaced with unqualified political flunkies loyal to the president, but not the law or Constitution.”
“Schedule F is a shameless attempt to politicize the federal workforce by replacing thousands of dedicated, qualified civil servants with political cronies,” said AFSCME President Lee Saunders. “Our union was born in the fight for a professional, non-partisan civil service, and our communities will pay the price if these anti-union extremists are allowed to undo decades of progress by stripping these workers of their freedoms. Together, we are fighting back.”
AFGE and AFSCME are represented by Democracy Forward and Bredhoff and Kaiser PLLC in this lawsuit.
“In just the nine days since Trump took office, his administration has repeatedly demonstrated a blatant disregard for the law in service of its political objectives. Its efforts to politicize the non-partisan, independent federal employees who protect our national and domestic security, ensure our food and medications are safe, deliver essential services to people and communities everywhere, and much more is simply and clearly illegal,” said Democracy Forward President & CEO Skye Perryman. “Democracy Forward will continue to meet the Trump administration with legal challenges when it chooses to break the law and harm people and communities.”