Workforce
Project 2025: The worst-case scenario for veterans
COMMENTARY | "By dismantling key agencies and slashing federal jobs, Project 2025 risks undermining not only government efficiency but also the livelihoods of tens of thousands of veterans," writes one veteran.
News
Schedule F looms over trust in government summit
New survey data from the Partnership for Public Service shows there is strong bipartisan support among the public for a nonpartisan civil service.
Workforce
Bush-era national security officials warn against Schedule F
In a letter to congressional committee staff directors, a cadre of former Republican appointees urged lawmakers to pursue a “middle ground” of federal employee accountability that preserves merit systems principles.
Workforce
OPM’s new acting director defends federal telework, anti-Schedule F regulations
Rob Shriver defended the Biden administration’s workforce policies, citing new data suggesting fewer federal employees telework than their private sector counterparts.
Workforce
Governance experts launch a group to oppose Schedule F
The new organization hopes to offer a consensus way forward on civil service reform issues in addition to opposing efforts to politicize the federal workforce.
Workforce
Employee groups laud Biden’s anti-Schedule F regulations
Unions and management organizations alike applauded the Office of Personnel Management’s effort to at least slow a future Republican administration’s efforts to strip federal employees of their civil service protections.
Workforce
The positive impact of policy entrepreneurs in the public service
COMMENTARY | The rewards for entrepreneurial leadership by top government careerists are low. They shouldn't be.
Updated
Workforce
OPM issues its final rule for Schedule F protections
The federal HR agency finalized its rule offering protections for career civil servants meant to safeguard against the potential reemergence of the Trump-era Schedule F policy.
Workforce
The MacGuffin of Schedule F
COMMENTARY | Plans to convert federal workers in policy-related positions into at-will employees leave the workforce dangling.
Oversight
MSPB political firing case raises new questions on Schedule F
The Housing and Urban Development Department’s 2017 firing of a probationary employee over alleged leaks was politically motivated, the agency tasked with enforcing civil service laws said last week.
Workforce
Politicians may rail against the ‘deep state,’ but research shows federal workers are effective and committed, not subversive
COMMENTARY | "Our years of research about the people who work in the federal government finds that they care deeply about their work, aiding the public and pursuing the stability and integrity of government," write two scholars.
Workforce
One agency’s Trump-era plan included stripping protections from 68% of its workforce
The Office of Management and Budget appeared to have taken a maximalist approach to the controversial job category, proposing to strip the civil service protections from IT workers, recruiters and even executive assistants.
Workforce
Trump’s civil service plans unsettle labor leaders at start of campaign season
Lawmakers and leaders of the American Federation of Government Employees warned that the former president represents a “threat to democracy” at the union’s annual legislative conference.
Management
That Time Abraham Lincoln went to a war zone to escape office-seekers
The front lines of the Civil War were a vacation compared to being literally stalked in Washington.
Pay & Benefits
Keeping an eye on Schedule F and other proposals to reform federal workforce and pay protections
COMMENTARY | Former President Trump's plan to convert large swaths of federal employees into "at-will" workers may be on ice for now, but he and other GOP contenders have proposed to revive the proposal or institute a more drastic one.
Workforce
Union coalition throws support behind OPM’s anti-Schedule F rules
A group of 14 labor organizations led by the National Treasury Employees Union urged the federal government’s HR agency to adopt its proposal to hamstring future efforts to strip feds’ job protections “promptly.”
Management
Will an attack on federal employees swing the election? Probably no
COMMENTARY | A closer look at what a recent series of focus groups revealed.
Workforce
‘Neutral competence,’ partisanship and efforts to overhaul the civil service
COMMENTARY | One scholar argues that a radical movement to shift powers to the president would be disastrous for the federal workforce.
Workforce
Regulations aimed at derailing a Schedule F revival proposed by OPM
An effort to insulate the federal workforce from future efforts to strip them of their removal protections could accelerate an “existential” debate over the nonpartisan civil service system, experts said.
Workforce
Deconstructing the administrative state: At what cost?
COMMENTARY | Americans should be frightened by the prospect of a return to the spoils system, argue two scholars.
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