A prior executive order under the first Trump Administration would have limited employee protections in disciplinary cases to the minimum required by law. Image: LapaiIrKrapai/Shutterstock.com
By: FEDweek StaffA White House memo telling agencies not to finalize any contracts negotiated during the last month of the Biden administration (see, Trump Acts against Biden-Era Contracts, but Effect Is Uncertain) could presage more moves by the Trump administration against federal unions that have been widely expected since the election.
Among the many federal workforce directives in the administration’s first two weeks, notably absent so far has been a reprise of the trio of executive orders issued in 2018 that constituted the heart of that administration’s federal workplace policies—along with a late-2020 order to create an excepted service Schedule F—but that the Biden administration revoked.
Those orders would have restricted what agencies could agree to in labor-management bargaining in a range of areas, such as what is covered under grievance procedures, allowable official time, and cost-free use by unions of agency office space and equipment. They also would have limited employee protections in disciplinary cases to the minimum required by law.
A lawsuit delayed many of the key provisions and by the time the first Trump term ended, some remained tied up in court while others were put in place but so late that they had little practical impact.
Also still not reissued is an order to change RIF rules to elevate performance ratings over veterans preference and years of service in the order of retention. While OPM started the rule-making process to do so, the rules never were finalized and the Biden administration withdrew the proposed rules. That apparently would require the rule-making process to start again from the beginning, if the Trump administration again wants to pursue that policy change.
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See also,
How Do Age and Years of Service Impact My Federal Retirement
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