The Wednesday order is the culmination of a move that has been anticipated for months, since the OPM’s rule on Schedule Policy/Career went into effect in March. While the jobs in the category remain career and nonpartisan, they will lose rights to exhaustive processes and appeals when they are removed, allowing for their quicker removal.
Everett Kelley, president of the American Federation of Government Employees, which represents about 800,000 federal workers, says the order enables corruption and discourages dissent by eliminating employees’ due process rights.
“The practical implications of this action are clear,” Kelley said in a statement Wednesday. “Workers who once felt comfortable reporting waste, fraud, abuse, and mismanagement at their place of employment because they were protected from retaliation will now be afraid for their jobs if they speak out.”
Speaking to reporters on a call, OPM director Scott Kupor highlighted the Administration’s need to employ workers to carry out the President’s policy agenda. The OPM director, however, denies that reclassified workers will be subject to loyalty tests or lose whistleblower protections.