FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
March 04, 2026
March 04, 2026
Contact:
Tim Kauffman
202-374-6491
[email protected]
Administration’s Proposed Changes to Reduction in Force Rules Will Trigger Another Mass Layoff of Federal Workers, AFGE Says
Changes would enable administration to fire federal workers under guise of tainted performance-based reviews, union warns
WASHINGTON – American Federation of Government Employees National President Everett Kelley today issued the following statement in response to the Office of Personnel Management’s proposed rule to be published tomorrow in the Federal Register that would revise the rules for conducting reduction-in-force actions targeting federal employees:
“After losing more than 300,000 civil servants in the past year, this proposed rule is setting the stage to arbitrarily fire even more federal employees in the administration’s efforts to dismantle the non-partisan civil service.
“By gutting seniority protections and handing agencies sweeping new discretion over who stays and who goes, OPM is making it easier to conduct politically motivated layoffs dressed up as ‘performance-based’ decisions. But the performance system itself is being rigged by another recent proposed OPM rule that would cap how many employees can receive high ratings, ensuring that ‘performance’ reflects not actual merit but management’s subjective preferences. This rule would weaponize those ratings, making performance the dominant RIF factor, letting agencies use subjective awards to sort employees, and stripping many workers out of RIF protections entirely.
“This proposal is part of a coordinated campaign. It follows proposed rules last month to strip away independent review of RIFs and institute a forced performance ratings system. Together, these proposed rules represent a blueprint for faster, less accountable mass firings and another step in the administration’s effort to dismantle the nonpartisan civil service. AFGE will be filing public comments on the proposed rule and reviewing all legal options if OPM moves forward with it.”
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