By law, the Merit Systems Protection Board is the agency responsible for reviewing federal employee appeals of various personnel actions initiated by hiring agencies. MSPB’s role as a neutral, third-party arbitrator was established by Congress nearly 50 years ago to help ensure an independent, professional, and nonpartisan civil service.
Now the Trump administration is upending that statutory framework to make it easier for agencies to terminate federal workers with impunity.
Under a proposed rule published Feb. 10 in the Federal Register, the administration is proposing to transfer responsibility for reviewing federal employee appeals of proposed reductions-in-force from MSPB to the Office of Personnel Management.
“For the past year, the Trump administration has been exerting its control over the Office of Personnel Management to illegally deny federal employees their right to appeal proposed terminations to the independent Merit Systems Protection Board. First they went after employees on probation, then it was those deemed unsuitable for their jobs, and now they want to deny third-party review of any proposed reductions-in-force,” AFGE National President Everett Kelley said.
“Eliminating independent review of federal RIF actions would not only make it harder for employees to challenge their proposed terminations, but would essentially give the administration free rein to terminate huge swaths of the federal workforce without meaningful independent oversight.”
AFGE intends to file public comments on the proposed rule before the comment period ends on March 12, and we will be reviewing our legal options if a final rule is issued.
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