Pay & Benefits
TSP funds posted mixed results in February
Portfolios invested in American businesses weighed down an otherwise positive month for the federal government’s 401(k)-style retirement savings program.
Workforce
House Dems: Immediately reinstate fired feds
A group of 85 lawmakers called on the Office of Special Counsel to broaden its recommendation earlier this week to stay the firing of six employees on probationary periods to all probationary workers purged in recent days.
Workforce
Unions call on senators to ‘defund’ Trump’s workforce purges
A group comprised of 15 federal employee unions urged leaders on the Senate Appropriations Committee to issue a two-year moratorium on reductions in force as part of legislation to fund the government past March 14.
Breaking News
Transition
Top Social Security deputies leave amid rumored staff cuts
At least five of the eight regional heads have decided to leave as the mid-level worker-turned-acting commissioner is said to mull workforce reduction.
Pay & Benefits
23,000 federal prison workers are set to take pay cuts up to 25% next month
The U.S. Bureau of Prisons said the decision to severely curtail retention incentive payments across the federal carceral system stems from fixed cost increases associated with operating under a continuing resolution.
Oversight
Comptroller general says impoundment violations are a ‘high priority’ for GAO
Gene Dodaro said the Government Accountability Office will move “as quickly and thoroughly as possible” to enforce potential violations of the Impoundment Control Act as the Trump administration seeks to take a cleaver to federal spending.
Workforce
House Dems press administration on telework for military spouses
Although the Trump administration has issued guidance purportedly exempting the spouses of military service members from the president’s return-to-office mandate, lawmakers say some federal workers have heard differently.
Workforce
Judge, convinced of overseas employees’ safety, denies injunction against USAID
U.S. District Judge Carl Nichols’ ruling Friday clears the way for the Trump administration to place the vast majority of USAID’s workforce on administrative leave as it prepares an effort to the shutter the agency.
Workforce
‘Salting the earth’: Trump ends presidential management fellowships and federal executive boards
The move to kill a key pipeline for aspiring civil servants and regional agency councils reflects a desire to make it impossible to rebuild the federal bureaucracy, experts said.
Workforce
Social Security offers 40 probationary feds reassignments to avert blanket firings
Around 40 Social Security Administration employees were given eight hours—or until 4:30 p.m. Thursday—to decide whether to accept reassignments to a field or hearing office, teleservice center or payment center and avoid being swept up in the Trump administration’s purge of the federal workforce.
Pay & Benefits
Senate Dem reintroduces Equal COLA Act, and more
A weekly roundup of pay and benefits news.
Workforce
Social Security to close hearing office in New York
The decision to shutter the busy White Plains Office of Hearings Operations when its lease expires in May comes amid Elon Musk’s effort to cancel thousands of government leases.
Workforce
Judge extends order blocking USAID leave notices and evacuations
The U.S. Agency for International Development must put on hold plans to place thousands of its employees on paid administrative leave for one more week, as a federal judge weighs whether to issue a preliminary injunction in the case.
Updated
Workforce
Federal judge clears way for 'deferred resignations'
U.S. District Judge George A. O’Toole Jr. found that unions must first adjudicate their claims before the Merit Systems Protection Board or Federal Labor Relations Authority before suing in court.
Workforce
EPA orders most workers back within weeks, breaking union covenants
The Office of Personnel Management previously issued guidance purporting to grant agencies the authority to disregard telework provisions in union contracts based on a blanket assertion of ‘management rights.’
Workforce
OPM continues to tweak 'deferred resignation' provisions as unions press court challenge
As the parties await a written decision from a federal judge in Massachusetts, unions fighting the controversial ‘Fork in the Road’ directive have highlighted how recent Trump firings could limit federal workers’ legal recourse.
Updated
Workforce
Trump apparently fires FLRA chairwoman
Susan Tsui Grundmann’s term at the agency that oversees federal sector labor disputes was not set to end until July.
Updated
Workforce
Judge extends pause on ‘deferred resignation’ deadline
U.S. District Judge George O’Toole reportedly said he was considering converting the existing temporary restraining order blocking the administration from advancing its deferred resignation program into a preliminary injunction, but he did not indicate how he would rule in the case.
Updated
Workforce
Federal judge blocks USAID leave notices and reinstates workers
Attorneys representing the Trump administration confirmed Friday that upwards of 2,200 employees, many of whom are stationed overseas, would have been put on administrative leave Friday night, absent the court’s intervention.
Updated
Workforce