Agencies must determine which employees fit the description and re-classify them under the new schedule. They have 90 days, or until January 19 – a day before the inauguration of the next president – to do that. The order states that in order to remove the conditions in question from any bargaining unit, the Federal Labor Relations Authority should “request them expeditiously”.
The change would “increase the accountability of federal employees who are responsible for making policy decisions that significantly affect the American people.” The order itself says that with the help of the new schedule, agencies can work out “weak performers” more effectively.
Unions and Democrats have criticized the move as a political injection into public sector employees.
“This is the most profound observation of the civil service in our lifetime,” Everett Kelly, president of the American Federation of Government Employees, said in a statement Thursday. The president has redoubled his efforts to politicize and corrupt the professional service. “
“This executive order would deprive potential process rights and potentially the protection of hundreds of thousands of federal workers and enable political appointees and other officials to voluntarily hire and dismiss these workers.”
Although it is not clear how many employees will be affected, the order provides a potentially successful list: those responsible for drafting the rules; Do “significant policy work”; Oversee attorneys; Report for presidential appointments; Or a negotiated collective bargaining agreement is one that can be reclassified.
The order comes less than two weeks before the presidential election in which Trump is fighting hard to win a second term. It is obscure The line between political appointments and career workers: If Trump wins, the change will make it easier to remove civil servants who do not agree with his administration’s policies. If it loses, it will, in theory, make it easier for political appointees to transition into civic employee roles, allowing them to stay ahead of the transition.
“I have been warning for some time that, if Trump is re-elected, he will work to politicize the civil service and get America back on track in the 19th century, when the corrupt system feeds the political patrons.” Former Office of the Director of Government Ethics, Verter Schub, tweeted twice.. “It’s bad if you don’t like corruption and abuse of power.”
Democrats indicated they could try to stop the order.
House Oversight Chair Caroline Maloney (DNY) said “President Trump’s new executive order will overturn the 150-year-old precedent that created the expert non-partisan civil service and return us to a ‘spoiling system’ of political rule.” “Congress must ensure that President Trump is not allowed to politicize this crucial policy position,” the statement said.
