Labor Groups Sue Trump Over Civil Service Rights Reduction (3)

President Donald Trump’s executive order that threatens the job security of federal workers drew a pair of lawsuits from labor unions and a labor rights group representing thousands of federal civil servants.

The order creates a new class of federal workers, Schedule F employees, that can be fired for their political affiliation, according to a complaint filed Wednesday by the American Federation of Government Employees, AFL-CIO, and the American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees, AFL-CIO in the US District Court for the District of Columbia. The EO “seeks to put politics over professionalism, contrary to the laws and values that have defined our career civil service for more than a century,” the complaint says.

The order violates regulations that set limits on the positions that can be exempted from civil service protections, and reclassified employees without giving them advanced notice, the complaint says. The unions were also entitled to notice and the opportunity to comment on the changes in the existing law before they were made, it says.

In a separate suit filed in the US District Court for the District of Maryland Monday, the Public Employees for Environmental Responsibility, which provides services to environmental and public health professionals, also said that Trump didn’t have the authority to adopt the EO.

The order is outside the president’s authority under the Civil Service Reform Act, deprives federal employees of property rights without due process, and requires federal agencies to violate the Administrative Procedure Act, the Maryland complaint says.

The National Treasury Employees Union also filed a similar suit against the order on Jan. 20.

The order creates a new broad category of employees that are excepted from protections Congress created for them, the complaint says. The order also brings back the patronage system the Civil Service Reform Act was designed to eliminate, along with the corruption it engendered, the complaint says.

“Since 1870, Congress and the presidents have consistently sought to ensure that selection and retention of federal career civil servants are based on merit, and isolated from the risk of undue partisan influence,” the complaint says. The civil service laws have sought to maintain a highly trained workforce that will keep the government moving when new administrations come into power, it says.

The CSRA makes clear that meritocracy is paramount in the selection and retention of federal servants, the complaint says.

Federal law generally places civil service employees in competitive service, excepted service, and senior executive service, but 70% of employees are in the competitive service, the complaint says.

The president has the authority to exclude employees from competitive service under specific circumstances, and five categories of excluded positions have been created, the complaint says. But Trump’s order establishes a Schedule F, which allows the president to dismiss employees in the schedule “on the basis of political allegiance or for other improper reasons,” it says.

The basic principles of the federal civil service have remained consistent, the complaint says, and career civil servants “are not removed simply on account of their political views or those of the president.”

Enforcement of Schedule F “will deprive the federal government of experienced, expert workers and undermine the efficient administration of government operations,” the complaint says. Though the order says the new schedule is needed to “restore accountability” to the civil service, the CSRA already provides robust procedures to remove insubordinate or poorly performing federal employees, it says.

The order is aimed at politicizing the civil service and any claimed benefits for the good administration of government are pretext, the complaint says.

The order exceeds Trump’s authority under 5 U.S.C. §3302 to exclude federal employees from competitive service where “necessary” and warranted by “conditions of good administration,” the complaint says. The Constitution also doesn’t give the president authority to unilaterally strip federal workers of their vested rights without due process, it says.

The order further disregards the notice-and-comment rulemaking required by the APA, the complaint says.

PEER requests that the order be preliminarily and permanently enjoined.

The Office of Personnel Management, which is named in the suits along with Trump, didn’t immediately respond to a request for comment.

Democracy Forward Foundation represents PEER.

The cases are Am. Fed. of Gov’t Emp. v. Trump, D.D.C., No. 1:25-00264, complaint filed 1/29/25 and Pub. Emp. for Env’t Responsibility v. Trump, D. Md., No. 8:25-cv-00260, complaint filed 1/28/25.