Trump Administration’s Schedule P/C Rule Seeks to Politicize Federal Workforce, Eliminate Whistleblower Protections

IFPTE calls administration’s latest rule “even more draconian than what was put forward during the first Trump Administration”

WASHINGTON, DC – The Trump Administration is set to release their final rule aimed at large-scale politicization of the United States government’s federal workforce, as well as to eliminate employee whistleblower protections.  This latest proposal, formerly called ‘Schedule F’ but now renamed  Schedule Policy/Career (Schedule P/C), overturns the Biden Administration’s April 2024 rule that provides strong guardrails against politicizing the federal civilian workforce and replaces it with a rule to give free-rein to the Trump Administration to arbitrarily transfer large segments of the federal workforce from the A-political competitive service to the excepted service in which employees would become at-will employees with no due process worker protections, lose collective bargaining rights, and be hired and maintain employment by adhering to “Presidential directives.”   Unlike the Administration’s draft rule published in April, this final rule also eliminates whistleblower protections for any worker designated as Schedule P/C. 

The executive officers of the International Federation of Professional and Technical Engineers (IFPTE), representing upwards of 34,000 federal workers, condemned the proposal. 

IFPTE President Matt Biggs: “According to reports, this Schedule P/C rule, being championed by the Trump Office of Management and Budget, is even more draconian than what was put forward during the first Trump Administration, and that’s saying something.  Simply stated, this is the latest in a long string of policy efforts by this administration aimed at destroying our A-political federal civil service with one that is politically aligned with this particular administration.  It is dangerous and if allowed to stand would put the very federal agencies that the public relies on so heavily at risk.  Congress would also lose the ability to rely on federal workers and their Unions from providing insights to them as lawmakers whose constitutional responsibility is to provide oversight of the executive branch.  Lawmakers from across the political spectrum should quickly condemn this proposal and work to block it from ever seeing the light of day.” 

IFPTE Secretary-Treasurer Gay Henson: “Federal workers across the nation, including IFPTE members, did not choose to work for the federal government to carry out the political will of whoever may be in the White House at any given time.  They did so because they have a desire to serve the nation and the taxpayers.  These workers should not have their worker protections and their Unions stripped from them, as this rule seeks to achieve.  IFPTE will work in a bipartisan manner with our friends in Congress against this misguided policy proposal.” 

IFPTE is a labor union representing upwards of 90,000 across North America, including upwards of 34,000 federal workers. 

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