es, You Could be Schedule F(ired)

It has been a politically significant week in Washington.

After landslide victories for the two frontrunners during the Super Tuesday primaries, the 2024 presidential election has come into sharp focus: Joe Biden v. Donald Trump.

And just 48 hours later, Biden gave the State of the Union address to a worldwide audience.

Together, these two events became the unofficial kickoff of the 2024 race for the White House.

For federal employees, it’s an opportune time to start taking stock of what this race means for your career. The good news is that we don’t have to speculate: Both candidates have been president before, and we know exactly how they view the federal workforce from that desk at 1600 Pennsylvania Ave.

Six years ago, in his first State of the Union speech, then-President Trump announced his desire to fire federal employees “who undermine the public trust or fail the American people.” Back then it was just a line in a speech, but mere weeks before he lost the 2020 election, he put a plan in motion that would have purged thousands of frontline, career civil servants for reasons that had nothing to do with performance. And he has pledged – on day one – to do it again.

President Biden took office and immediately rescinded Trump’s Schedule F plan before any damage was done.

It may be tempting to write off Schedule F as a harmless, forgotten blip that would have targeted only senior policy employees.

That would be unwise.

NTEU, through a Freedom of Information Act request, obtained hundreds of documents from the only office that came close to fully implementing Schedule F before Trump left town, the Office of Management and Budget.

Here is what we learned: Almost no one is safe.

Trump’s OMB Director was about to push most of his staff into Schedule F, including office managers, IT specialists, correspondence specialists, economists, human resource specialists, administrative assistants, cybersecurity specialists, and many, many others. They would have become at-will employees, with no ability to challenge their firing.

Notably, the man in charge of OMB back then is now an architect of the plan to resurrect Schedule F in the next Republican administration. Section One of their 920-page plan calls you the “underworked, overcompensated, and unaccountable federal civilian workforce.”

Learn more about what NTEU is doing to keep you from being Schedule F(ired) by visiting our special Schedule F page.

And, as always, register to vote.