Trump Continues to Break up OPM. AFGE Members Call on Congress to Block It
December 21, 2020
Categories:
OPM, The Insider
The Trump administration continues to quietly break up the Office of Personnel Management (OPM) with a new office being stood up within OPM to take over policy making.
Even though the administration earlier this year told OPM employees it had ended the merger effort with the General Services Administration (GSA), the administration continued its effort to break up the agency. Many of OPM’s core functions have already been moved to GSA, the Office of Management and Budget (OMB), and the Federal Aviation Administration.
The administration has also set up a new office and is bringing in new hires to continue the plan to cripple OPM, the government’s principal civil service agency important to our country’s merit systems.
OPM rehired Marcel Jemio, a former OPM employee who left and went to GSA to assist with the OPM/GSA merger. AFGE Local 32 filed a grievance on his illegal interference being a GSA employee attempting to manage OPM employees within this new office. OPM subsequently rehired him last month, and he's facilitating changes as an official OPM employee manager in preparation for David Spinale, the political appointee overseeing this new office.
“It’s now less about the merger and more about functions leaving OPM,” said Marlo Bryant-Cunningham, president of AFGE Local 32 representing OPM workers.
The effort to merge OPM and GSA started last year when the administration proposed the idea, which Congress immediately rejected and explicitly prohibited them from moving forward.
AFGE is asking our members to immediately contact their lawmakers to encourage a bipartisan effort for restoring OPM’s policy functions and funding that have been wrongly sent to GSA, OMB, and FAA. We’re also asking Congress to provide OPM with the funding levels necessary to modernize and gain efficiencies.
“Every American who believes government decision-making should be based on facts, not politics, should contact their members of Congress and urge them to protect OPM and preserve its critical role as a safeguard against politicizing the civil service,” said AFGE President Everett Kelley. “There's no time to waste. The future of OPM depends on us taking action NOW!”
