By Tupungato / Shutterstock.com

Broad Coalition of Employee, Advocacy Groups Makes Last-Ditch Effort to Convince Congress to Block Schedule F

With just days remaining until the latest government shutdown deadline, more than 60 organizations are pressuring Democratic lawmakers to ensure spending legislation includes a provision preventing the Trump administration from politicizing the civil service.

A group of more than 60 organizations representing various facets of the federal workforce and an array of policy advocates last week pushed Democratic lawmakers to negotiate as part of legislation to keep the government open past this week language blocking a controversial effort by the Trump administration to strip the civil service protections from potentially hundreds of thousands of federal workers.

In October, President Trump signed an executive order creating a new Schedule F job classification within the government’s career civil service for “employees in confidential, policy-determining, policy-making, or policy-advocating positions,” and instructing agencies to come up with a preliminary list of positions that meet that criteria by Jan. 19. The new job classification would make federal workers essentially at-will employees, subject to termination without cause.

Federal employee unions, organizations representing managers and executives, and good government groups have sounded the alarm about the Trump administration’s plan since it was unveiled. The Office of Management and Budget already has submitted a proposal to the Office of Personnel Management to convert 88% of its employees to Schedule F, and other agencies are expected to follow suit in the coming days.

Despite the consensus that Trump’s directive could undo more than a century of federal civil service law and warnings that even partial implementation could lead to a “logistical nightmare” for the Biden administration, sources told Government Executive that many lawmakers so far have failed to understand the threat Schedule F poses.

House and Senate leadership were scheduled to meet on Tuesday afternoon to finalize negotiations on bills to fund the government past Dec. 18 and provide additional COVID-19 relief to Americans. In a Dec. 11 letter to House Speaker Nancy Pelosi and Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer, 68 organizations engaged in a last-ditch effort to ensure the appropriations bill will block federal funds from being used to convert federal positions to Schedule F. The letter was published by the Government Accountability Project on Monday.

“With COVID-19 cases rising, and the challenge of widespread vaccine distribution on the horizon, now is not the time to risk [Schedule F being implemented],” the organizations wrote. “Many critical response efforts will be stymied without the federal workers to carry them out. As you look to pass a bill providing the executive branch with hundreds of billions of dollars in budget authority, we urge you to protect a key check on corruption and abuse of power—public servants who hold allegiance to the rule of law and the Constitution, not a political party.”

The coalition includes federal employee unions like the American Federation of Government Employees and the National Treasury Employees Union, as well as management organizations like the Senior Executives Association. The Partnership for Public Service and other good government organizations are signatories, in addition to transparency-focused groups like the Project on Government Oversight.

The groups stressed that given the pace at which some agencies are moving to greenlight conversions to Schedule F, the directive is not something that can simply be rescinded with the stroke of a pen when President-elect Biden enters office on Jan. 20.

“Even if the Biden administration is able to reverse the order and bring back employees, this process could take weeks, if not months, added to the weeks prior to inauguration that government must operate without the fired employees, and would raise other complications for the dismissed employees, such as breaks in service,” they wrote. “And any reversal would need to account for burrowed-in appointees who may seek to disrupt the Biden administration. Even the simplest reversal of new hiring actions will require lengthy and costly litigation and present the risk of a court reinstating the new hires.”

X
This website uses cookies to enhance user experience and to analyze performance and traffic on our website. We also share information about your use of our site with our social media, advertising and analytics partners. Learn More / Do Not Sell My Personal Information
Accept Cookies
X
Cookie Preferences Cookie List

Do Not Sell My Personal Information

When you visit our website, we store cookies on your browser to collect information. The information collected might relate to you, your preferences or your device, and is mostly used to make the site work as you expect it to and to provide a more personalized web experience. However, you can choose not to allow certain types of cookies, which may impact your experience of the site and the services we are able to offer. Click on the different category headings to find out more and change our default settings according to your preference. You cannot opt-out of our First Party Strictly Necessary Cookies as they are deployed in order to ensure the proper functioning of our website (such as prompting the cookie banner and remembering your settings, to log into your account, to redirect you when you log out, etc.). For more information about the First and Third Party Cookies used please follow this link.

Allow All Cookies

Manage Consent Preferences

Strictly Necessary Cookies - Always Active

We do not allow you to opt-out of our certain cookies, as they are necessary to ensure the proper functioning of our website (such as prompting our cookie banner and remembering your privacy choices) and/or to monitor site performance. These cookies are not used in a way that constitutes a “sale” of your data under the CCPA. You can set your browser to block or alert you about these cookies, but some parts of the site will not work as intended if you do so. You can usually find these settings in the Options or Preferences menu of your browser. Visit www.allaboutcookies.org to learn more.

Sale of Personal Data, Targeting & Social Media Cookies

Under the California Consumer Privacy Act, you have the right to opt-out of the sale of your personal information to third parties. These cookies collect information for analytics and to personalize your experience with targeted ads. You may exercise your right to opt out of the sale of personal information by using this toggle switch. If you opt out we will not be able to offer you personalised ads and will not hand over your personal information to any third parties. Additionally, you may contact our legal department for further clarification about your rights as a California consumer by using this Exercise My Rights link

If you have enabled privacy controls on your browser (such as a plugin), we have to take that as a valid request to opt-out. Therefore we would not be able to track your activity through the web. This may affect our ability to personalize ads according to your preferences.

Targeting cookies may be set through our site by our advertising partners. They may be used by those companies to build a profile of your interests and show you relevant adverts on other sites. They do not store directly personal information, but are based on uniquely identifying your browser and internet device. If you do not allow these cookies, you will experience less targeted advertising.

Social media cookies are set by a range of social media services that we have added to the site to enable you to share our content with your friends and networks. They are capable of tracking your browser across other sites and building up a profile of your interests. This may impact the content and messages you see on other websites you visit. If you do not allow these cookies you may not be able to use or see these sharing tools.

If you want to opt out of all of our lead reports and lists, please submit a privacy request at our Do Not Sell page.

Save Settings
Cookie Preferences Cookie List

Cookie List

A cookie is a small piece of data (text file) that a website – when visited by a user – asks your browser to store on your device in order to remember information about you, such as your language preference or login information. Those cookies are set by us and called first-party cookies. We also use third-party cookies – which are cookies from a domain different than the domain of the website you are visiting – for our advertising and marketing efforts. More specifically, we use cookies and other tracking technologies for the following purposes:

Strictly Necessary Cookies

We do not allow you to opt-out of our certain cookies, as they are necessary to ensure the proper functioning of our website (such as prompting our cookie banner and remembering your privacy choices) and/or to monitor site performance. These cookies are not used in a way that constitutes a “sale” of your data under the CCPA. You can set your browser to block or alert you about these cookies, but some parts of the site will not work as intended if you do so. You can usually find these settings in the Options or Preferences menu of your browser. Visit www.allaboutcookies.org to learn more.

Functional Cookies

We do not allow you to opt-out of our certain cookies, as they are necessary to ensure the proper functioning of our website (such as prompting our cookie banner and remembering your privacy choices) and/or to monitor site performance. These cookies are not used in a way that constitutes a “sale” of your data under the CCPA. You can set your browser to block or alert you about these cookies, but some parts of the site will not work as intended if you do so. You can usually find these settings in the Options or Preferences menu of your browser. Visit www.allaboutcookies.org to learn more.

Performance Cookies

We do not allow you to opt-out of our certain cookies, as they are necessary to ensure the proper functioning of our website (such as prompting our cookie banner and remembering your privacy choices) and/or to monitor site performance. These cookies are not used in a way that constitutes a “sale” of your data under the CCPA. You can set your browser to block or alert you about these cookies, but some parts of the site will not work as intended if you do so. You can usually find these settings in the Options or Preferences menu of your browser. Visit www.allaboutcookies.org to learn more.

Sale of Personal Data

We also use cookies to personalize your experience on our websites, including by determining the most relevant content and advertisements to show you, and to monitor site traffic and performance, so that we may improve our websites and your experience. You may opt out of our use of such cookies (and the associated “sale” of your Personal Information) by using this toggle switch. You will still see some advertising, regardless of your selection. Because we do not track you across different devices, browsers and GEMG properties, your selection will take effect only on this browser, this device and this website.

Social Media Cookies

We also use cookies to personalize your experience on our websites, including by determining the most relevant content and advertisements to show you, and to monitor site traffic and performance, so that we may improve our websites and your experience. You may opt out of our use of such cookies (and the associated “sale” of your Personal Information) by using this toggle switch. You will still see some advertising, regardless of your selection. Because we do not track you across different devices, browsers and GEMG properties, your selection will take effect only on this browser, this device and this website.

Targeting Cookies

We also use cookies to personalize your experience on our websites, including by determining the most relevant content and advertisements to show you, and to monitor site traffic and performance, so that we may improve our websites and your experience. You may opt out of our use of such cookies (and the associated “sale” of your Personal Information) by using this toggle switch. You will still see some advertising, regardless of your selection. Because we do not track you across different devices, browsers and GEMG properties, your selection will take effect only on this browser, this device and this website.