AFGE and a coalition of labor unions led by watchdog organization Public Employees for Environmental Responsibility are challenging a Trump administration policy that would make it easier for political appointees to fire federal workers without cause.
On Feb. 6, the Office of Personnel Management published a final rule designed to strip tens of thousands of federal employees of their due process rights and protections. It allows agencies to convert employees hired under the competitive service to a new excepted service classification called Schedule Policy/Career, where they could be fired “at will” with essentially no procedural or appeal safeguards that have long protected the integrity of government operations.
Our legal challenge, filed March 4 in U.S. District Court for the District of Maryland, asserts that the final rule violates the law by undermining Congress’ clear mandate to create a nonpartisan and merit-based civil service. Joining PEER and AFGE in the new lawsuit are the American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees (AFSCME), the AFL-CIO, and AFGE Local 1923.
“If the Schedule Policy/Career rule is allowed to move forward, it will amount to one of the largest acts of political corruption in American history,” AFGE President Everett Kelley said. “Tens of thousands of experienced, nonpartisan civil servants will be ushered out of government and replaced by political loyalists whose main qualification is their willingness to serve a political agenda rather than the law or the American people. Such a move will supercharge waste, abuse of authority, and retaliation inside our federal agencies, where decisions about who gets help and who gets hurt will be driven by politics, rewarding friends and punishing enemies of the administration in power. AFGE is proud to stand with our allies to fight against this corruption in court.”
The new legal challenge combines pair of lawsuits previously filed by PEER, AFGE, and AFSCME in response to the executive order President Trump issued on Jan. 20, 2025, entitled, “Restoring Accountability to Policy-Influencing Positions Within the Federal Workforce.” The order is nearly identical to an effort from the first Trump administration that was known as Schedule F.
OPM’s final rule would lay the groundwork for the Trump administration to convert a significant percentage of the federal civil service from employees who can only be fired for cause to at-will employees who can be fired for any reason at all. Tens of thousands of federal employees – including those who protect our public health, the environment and our food and water – who were hired for their expertise and serve in non-partisan positions could be stripped of vested job protections, in violation of their due process rights and in excess of the president’s constitutional authority.
“This profoundly troubling rule advances efforts by the administration to politicize policymaking by removing scientists and experts and inserting, instead, those who will follow the wishes of political leaders,” PEER Executive Director Tim Whitehouse said. “It would allow political leaders to reach deep into federal agencies to remove and replace unknown and unheralded civil servants whose work is critical to keeping our country safe but whose viewpoints may run afoul of the prevailing political narrative of the day.”
Plaintiffs are represented by Democracy Forward, the Law Office of Jonathan Weissglass, and Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington (CREW).
In addition to challenging this policy in the courts, AFGE strongly supports bipartisan legislation introduced in the Senate and House, “The Save the Civil Service Act,” which would overturn the OPM rule.
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