Unions Sue Over Trump’s Order Making It Easier to Fire Federal Employees

The White House on Jan. 22. Madalina Vasiliu/The Epoch Times

Two more unions have sued President Donald Trump over his executive order aimed at making it easier to fire federal employees.

His order, which builds on one from his first term, creates a schedule of federal workers who don’t receive the same civil service protections as other career positions in the federal service. Previously described as “Schedule F,” the classification applies to positions of “a confidential, policy-determining, policy-making, or policy-advocating character.”

The order redesignates “Schedule F” as “Schedule Policy/Career” and declares that certain federal regulations surrounding employees “shall be held inoperative and without effect.”

The unions’ Jan. 29 lawsuit alleges that doing so without undergoing a formal rule-making process violates the Administrative Procedures Act (APA). They’re asking a federal court in Washington to declare that the order violates the APA and to prevent its enforcement.

“Plaintiffs—like all members of the public—are entitled to notice and the opportunity to be heard regarding the government’s changes to the regulations protecting the rights of career civil servants before any changes are made,” the lawsuit from the American Federation of Government Employees and American Federation of State, County, and Municipal Employees (AFSCME) reads. Both unions are part of the AFL-CIO.

The lawsuit names Trump in his official capacity, as well as the Office of Personnel Management (OPM) and its acting director, Charles Ezell.

On Jan. 27, OPM released a memo instructing federal agencies to identify positions that qualified for reclassification under the new category Schedule Policy/Career.

AFSCME President Lee Saunders, whose organization includes individuals working for the federal government, said in a press release that Trump’s order “is a shameless attempt to politicize the federal workforce by replacing thousands of dedicated, qualified civil servants with political cronies.”

“Our union was born in the fight for a professional, nonpartisan civil service, and our communities will pay the price if these anti-union extremists are allowed to undo decades of progress by stripping these workers of their freedoms,” Saunders said.

Trump presented the order as a way to address poor performance by federal employees.

“In recent years ... there have been numerous and well-documented cases of career federal employees resisting and undermining the policies and directives of their executive leadership,” his order reads.

“Principles of good administration, therefore, necessitate action to restore accountability to the career civil service, beginning with positions of a confidential, policy-determining, policy-making, or policy-advocating character.”

His order contains a provision saying that “employees in or applicants for Schedule Policy/Career positions are not required to personally or politically support the current president or the policies of the current administration.”

It adds that failure to faithfully implement administration policies consistent with their constitutional oath “is grounds for dismissal.”

The lawsuit came amid a flood of others targeting the Trump administration’s actions. Another filed by the National Treasury Employees Union on Inauguration Day similarly alleged that Trump violated the APA.

“Reclassifying large numbers of employees in the competitive service or existing excepted service schedules into a new excepted service schedule with the intent of making them at-will employees is contrary to Congress’s intent in establishing broad protections for most federal employees,” the union said.

The administration has also ordered agencies to submit detailed plans for returning their workforce to in-person work and terminate remote work arrangements.

The Department of Justice did not respond to The Epoch Times’ inquiry by publication time.

Zachary Stieber and Tom Ozimek contributed to this report.