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6/25/2025 - NTEU Responds to Administration’s Attempts to Make It Easier to Fire Federal Employees
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NTEU Responds to the Trump Administration’s Attempts to Make It Easier to Fire Federal Employees
Since January, the Trump Administration has continuously pushed to make it easier to fire federal employees. In line with those efforts, OPM recently issued one proposed regulation on “Suitability and Fitness” and one “final” regulation on “Strengthening Probationary Periods in the Federal Service.” NTEU is fighting for your rights and pushing back against these illegitimate attempts to undo existing civil-service protections. First, OPM’s proposed regulation on "Suitability and Fitness" seeks to make it easier to remove current federal employees using “suitability” procedures instead of Congress's statutory adverse-action system. The regulation would also give OPM the exclusive authority to make suitability determinations—to direct an employee’s firing, for example—based on something that an employee does after being hired. This regulation would allow OPM to order agencies to promptly fire their employees under a “more streamlined” procedure than the statute Congress enacted governing employee removals. On June 24, NTEU submitted comments strongly opposing this proposed regulation because it is expressly intended to be an end-run around the statutory protections that Congress gave to employees. We will let you know when the final rule is issued. Second, OPM has issued a new regulation, “Strengthening Probationary Periods in the Federal Service," without going through the usual notice-and-comment process required for federal regulations. The regulation would completely overhaul the current rules governing federal-employee probationary periods. It eliminates previous limitations on firing probationary employees. The new regulation also creates new requirements that must be fulfilled for probationary employees to remain in their positions beyond their initial “trial period[s].” Under the current system, employees automatically become tenured at the end of their probationary periods if there are no performance concerns. The new rules would instead require employees to “demonstrate,” and their agencies to “certify,” that keeping an employee in their position is “in the public interest.” We are currently evaluating potential legal challenges to the substance of the new regulation and OPM’s failure to provide public notice and solicit comments before publishing it. |
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