President Donald J. Trump spent his first day in office issuing a slew of executive orders directly targeting federal workers: Schedule F reclassifying hundreds of thousands of federal workers as at-will employees; anti-telework policy requiring federal employees to return to in-person work fulltime; a hiring freeze; and anti-diversity policy ending equity and inclusion programs in the government.
Schedule F
Trump reinstated his controversial excepted service hiring authority, Schedule F, to include any career federal job connected to federal policy.
The order is part of an effort to corrupt the federal government by attempting to eliminate employees’ due process rights so employees can be fired for political reasons. It will potentially remove hundreds of thousands of federal jobs from the nonpartisan, professional civil service and make them answerable to the will of one man.
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 urges Congress to intervene immediately to stop Schedule F.
“This unprecedented assertion of executive power will create an army of sycophants beholden only to Donald Trump, not the Constitution or the American people. The integrity of the entire federal government could be irreparably harmed if this is not stopped,” said AFGE President Everett Kelley. “Every American has a stake in ensuring that federal employees remain free to carry out the mission of the agencies that employ them without fear of political interference.”
Telework
Trump also issued a directive ending remote work arrangements and requiring federal employees to return to in-person work fulltime – but the order stopped short of tearing up collective bargaining agreements.
The memo read, “Heads of all departments and agencies in the executive branch of Government shall, as soon as practicable, take all necessary steps to terminate remote work arrangements and require employees to return to work in-person at their respective duty stations on a full-time basis, provided that the department and agency heads shall make exemptions they deem necessary.”
This directive turns back the clock to before 2010 when Congress required federal agencies to expand telework by law. Congress took this action a full decade before the pandemic, recognizing telework as an important tool for agencies’ operational efficiency.
“To justify this backward action, lawmakers and members of President Trump’s transition team have spent months exaggerating the number of federal employees who telework and accusing those who do of failing to perform the duties of their jobs,” Kelley said. “The truth is that less than half of all federal jobs are eligible for telework, and the workers who are eligible to telework still spend most of their work hours at their regular duty stations.
AFGE encourages the Trump administration to rethink its approach and focus on what it can do to make government programs work better for the American people.
Read Telework Myths & Facts.
This directive doesn’t appear to violate any collective bargaining agreements, and our CBAs are legally binding and in effect. The directive also doesn’t set any timelines and appears to give agencies latitude in how to implement them, including the ability to give exceptions. Additional guidance may be issued. Whether AFGE will file a lawsuit depends on how it is implemented. If they violate our contracts, we will take appropriate action to uphold our rights.
Hiring freeze
Trump ordered a hiring freeze despite warnings from the government’s top watchdog agency that such blanket freezes exacerbate workforce shortages and contribute to skills gaps.
The directive said, “As part of this freeze, no Federal civilian position that is vacant at noon on January 20, 2025, may be filled, and no new position may be created except as otherwise provided for in this memorandum or other applicable law. Except as provided below, this freeze applies to all executive departments and agencies regardless of their sources of operational and programmatic funding.
The exceptions to the hiring freeze include public safety and potentially VA and Social Security benefits administration.
“Make no mistake – this action is not about making the federal government run more efficiently but rather is about sowing chaos and targeting a group of patriotic Americans that President Trump openly calls crooked and dishonest,” Kelley added. Trump’s pick to once again lead the Office of Management and Budget, Russell Vought, has been quoted in private speeches saying he wants to “put career civil servants in trauma.”
Diversity
Trump issued an executive order ending diversity, equity, and inclusion programs within federal agencies.
The federal government has the lowest gender and racial pay gaps of all employers, precisely because employment decisions are made based on one’s ability to do the work and not on where they went to school or who they supported in the last election. These programs also help build a federal government that looks like the diverse population it serves.
“Undoing these programs is just another way for President Trump to undermine the merit-based civil service and turn federal hiring and firing decisions into loyalty tests,” Kelley said. “Our nation’s military leaders have said that eliminating diversity, equity, and inclusion programs within the Defense Department risks undermining military readiness.”
Fight back!
The Trump Administration wasted no time dismantling the government and targeting AFGE for extinction.
Join our Speakers Bureau if you’re ready to speak with media about the impact of an anti-AFGE administration on federal and D.C. employees. Sign up at www.afge.org/speakersbureau.
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