Unions and a watchdog organization are re-upping their legal challenge to stop President Donald Trump’s push to strip civil service protections from thousands of federal employees.
Public Employees for Environmental Responsibility; the American Federation of Government Employees; the American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees; as well as the AFL-CIO filed an updated lawsuit Wednesday against the Trump administration’s creation of a new classification of government worker that can be more easily fired.
The category, known as Schedule Policy/Career, essentially designates policy-influencing career staffers as at-will employees, removing safeguards they once held to appeal their firings. The Office of Personnel Management has estimated roughly 50,000 employees across the government could slot into the new classification.
“The Trump-Vance administration spent its first year in office targeting those who serve the American people through decimating the civil service and undermining the protections that have supported the workforce for decades — and now they’re back at it,” Skye Perryman, president and CEO of Democracy Forward, said in a statement.
