Request for Information Will Impact Policies Like Telework and Schedule F
President Trump has issued a number of executive orders since his inauguration on January 20, 2025. The Office of Personnel Management (OPM) is quickly following up with agencies requiring information to be sent to OPM by March 7, 2025 on what steps have been taken to comply with specific executive orders.
The guidance from OPM sounds straightforward. It is short and specific, but is not simple and straightforward. It concerns complex interactions regarding the federal workforce under two different administrations and executive orders passed and rescinded.
Wading through this morass of documents and regulations takes time, effort, and expertise. That is part of the reason OPM is following up. The administration is moving fast to restructure the federal workforce. OPM is implementing a plan to make these changes. If the changes are not made by agencies as directed, making the changes will be more difficult.
The new information that has been requested involves complex labor and employee relations issues unique to the federal government. The information in this request will impact future guidance on broader issues including telework by federal employees and moving positions under what was called Schedule F under the first Trump administration.
OPM will have to know what has been done in agencies under President Biden and his policies to proceed with the new policies from President Trump. Federal employee unions will be using every legal means at their disposal to prevent and delay any significant changes the new administration intends to make.
In other words, from the perspective of DOGE and the Trump administration, the “deep state” within the federal bureaucracy is fighting back to preserve the existing structure and policies that protect and preserve federal employees from new administrations with different policies. As the cases going into court or before the Federal Labor Relations Authority will be numerous and complex, OPM will need an accurate compilation of the requested information.
Revocation of Biden Executive Order 14003
The latest OPM guidance for agencies is “Guidance on Revocation of Executive Order 14003”. Executive Order 14003 was issued on January 22, 2021, by President Biden and was entitled Protecting the Federal Workforce.
President Trump revoked the Biden Executive Order with Executive Order 14171 entitled Restoring Accountability to Policy-Influencing Positions Within the Federal Workforce (“Restoring Accountability”).
The new guidance from OPM is directing agencies on their progress in implementing the Trump Executive Order on Restoring Accountability (See Schedule F is Back for more details on this Trump Executive Order.)
The latest OPM guidance is focused on “suspending, revising, or rescinding revisions to discipline and unacceptable performance policies” and rescinding changes made to discipline and unacceptable performance policies during the first Trump administration.
From Schedule F to Policy/Career
The Restoring Accountability Executive Order primarily concerned what was labeled Schedule F under the first Trump administration. The new Order changed the term Schedule F to Policy/Career.
The Restoring Accountability Order applies to federal employees in policymaking positions. The new Order states it is designed to “maintain professionalism and accountability within the civil service.”
It states the president’s belief: “This accountability is sorely lacking today. Only 41 percent of civil service supervisors are confident that they can remove an employee who engaged in insubordination or serious misconduct. Even fewer supervisors — 26 percent — are confident they can remove an employee for poor performance.”
What Was Meant by Policy/Career Positions?
OPM guided agencies on identifying federal employee positions that fall under the Policy/Career category.
The guidance states employees moved into Security Policy/Career will remain as federal, career employees. The same procedures used for career positions will still be used for hiring.
It also stated that political affiliation would not be considered. The hiring decisions would be based on which candidates have the greatest knowledge, skills, and ability to do the job. The employees do not have to agree with the administration’s policies or the goals of the president, but those falling into this category of federal employees would have to work to implement these as the job requires.
The biggest change for employees in Schedule Policy/Career positions would be that they are exempt from Chapter 75 protection. They will not have the same rights to appeal adverse actions to the MSPB.
In other words, they can be fired more easily without the protections created over time to protect career federal employees from being quickly and easily fired.
Presumably, President Trump concluded in his first term of office that changing the structure of the federal workforce in a meaningful way requires being able to make the federal workforce less intransigent and more willing to implement new policies and goals different from those under Democratic administrations.
What OPM Wants from Agencies
The new directive tells agencies to report on “1) all policies (including those
contained in collective bargaining agreements) enacted, modified, or repealed pursuant to Executive Order 14003 and 2) which such policies have been repealed, modified, or enacted
pursuant to Restoring Accountability.”
Section 4 of the Biden Executive order, which has now been rescinded, ordered: “[t]he head of each agency subject to the provisions of chapter 71 of title 5, United States Code, shall elect to negotiate over the subjects in 5 U.S.C. § 7106(b)(1) and shall instruct subordinate officials to do the same.”
This reference is meaningless to anyone other than federal labor relations experts. That may be why there is no explanation in the OPM guidance. The guidance is being distributed to agencies that employ experts in labor and employee relations, and these are the people who will be tasked with quickly retrieving this information.
Here is the section in the labor relations statute to which the OPM guidance refers.
Nothing in this section shall preclude any agency and any labor organization from negotiating:
(1) at the election of the agency, on the numbers, types, and grades of employees or positions assigned to any organizational subdivision, work project, or tour of duty, or on the technology, methods, and means of performing work;
(2) procedures which management officials of the agency will observe in exercising any authority under this section; or
(3) appropriate arrangements for employees adversely affected by the exercise of any authority under this section by such management officials.
President Biden told agencies to bargain on these “permissive” topics. President Trump had told agencies not to bargain on these topics.
OPM now wants to know of any union agreements negotiated under this labor relations statute section. OPM is telling agencies to submit these reports, including what steps have been taken to comply with previous guidance from OPM on this subject, to [email protected] by March 7, 2025.
If any collective bargaining agreement (CBA) incorporated provisions requiring
agency officials to negotiate over such matters, agencies should identify those provisions and, as appropriate and consistent with applicable law, engage impacted unions, as soon as practicable, to suspend, revise, or rescind such requirement in these CBA provisions. Agencies should report to OPM no later than March 7, 2025 on whether they have taken these steps.
Conclusion
OPM is moving forward with changing how the federal human resources system operates. The stated goals include making the workforce subject to significant performance standards and making it easier to remove employees using their federal jobs to delay or prevent new policies from being implemented after an election.
While the federal workforce is described as “non-political” in various press releases and legal submissions, the reality is two different political philosophies are in opposition.
While federal employees must be non-political and follow the Hatch Act, federal employee unions representing about 26 percent of the workforce operate as strong supporters of the Democratic party. If that was not already obvious, the battles now underway and rapidly proceeding into court clearly lay out the political divisions in opposition.
