Trump Wants to Change ‘Suitability’ for Federal Employment

President Donald Trump wants to expand his administration’s power over how managers determine if a person is fit to work for the US government, making it easier to fire employees over their behavior outside the workday.

The president directed the Office of Personnel Management, the federal government’s HR division, to tweak the definition of misconduct that the government uses to determine whether to fire an employee. This would give OPM the power to terminate employees any actions outside work hours that the Trump administration opposes, said Jacqueline Simon, public policy director at the American Federation of Government Employees.

Lawyers for AFGE, the largest union for federal employees, say the president doesn’t have this power.

“Congress has not extended OPM the authority to willy-nilly fire federal employees across the government, and the president cannot change that simply by signing an executive order,” added Norm Eisen, one of the attorneys representing AFGE in a lawsuit challenging the Trump administration’s firing of federal employees.

OPM didn’t immediately respond to Bloomberg Law’s request for comment on Trump’s directive.

The union sued the Trump administration over firings that stemmed from an OPM memo directing agencies to terminate probationary workers. A California judge said that memo was illegal.

OPM already has the authority to direct federal agencies not to hire an applicant for a position if that person’s background is too risky, said Daniel Sitterly, a former human resources official at the Department of Veterans Affairs. Sitterly said Trump’s memo wouldn’t change that dramatically.

“As long as it’s not strictly political and there is a work component to it, it would have merit,” he said.

The president in February said people that don’t file their tax returns on time or don’t agree to keep information confidential shouldn’t be considered “suitable” for federal employment.