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Rep. Gerry Connolly (D-Va.) last week reintroduced two NTEU-endorsed bills to stop the implementation of President Trump’s Schedule F executive order (EO).
The Saving the Civil Service Act would rescind the order removing civil service protections from an entire class of employees and prevent the use of government funding to implement this or any future order. The bill would also return positions and employees that are moved to Schedule F back to their previous designation.
The Preventing a Patronage System Act prohibits agencies from reclassifying any civil service position into an excepted service schedule created after Sept. 30, 2020. Employees could only reclassify civil service positions into the five excepted service schedules (schedules A through E) in use before this fiscal year.
The bills were reintroduced days before the Jan. 19 deadline for agencies to submit initial lists of potential candidates for possible reclassification to the new Schedule F.
In October, President Trump issued an EO creating a new exception to competitive civil service rules allowing any number of frontline federal workers to be fired at will, with no cause and no due process. NTEU filed a lawsuit against the order and worked with congressional supporters to introduce legislation blocking it.
NTEU will continue to fight this threat to the professional, merit-based civil service.