Trump strips job protections from 8,000 senior federal workers

President Donald Trump signed an executive order Wednesday reclassifying about 8,000 senior federal workers and making it easier to fire them for any reason, despite criticism that the move would politicize the civil service.

The long-anticipated order finalizes the administration’s push to extend at-will status to career civil servants, part of a broader effort to transform the federal workforce. The new classification, Schedule Policy/Career — called Schedule F during Trump’s first term — applies mostly to senior employees who deal directly with policy decisions.

Administration officials estimated that about 97% of those affected are at or above the GS-15 level, near the top of the federal pay scale.

The order affects far fewer workers than the administration once projected; the Office of Personnel Management had previously estimated that as many as 50,000 positions could be reclassified.

Democrats, unions and good-government groups have objected, arguing that the change would erode long-standing protections that keep the civil service from becoming a politicized patronage system. Several lawsuits are challenging it.

“The Trump-Vance administration’s attempts to dismantle civil service protections would make it easier to purge experienced public servants,” said Skye Perryman, president and CEO of Democracy Forward, one of the organizations challenging the reclassification. “When government experts can be fired without cause, it’s not just federal workers who are harmed — it’s the people across the country who rely on these essential services every day.”

Trump had initially pushed to create the at-will status in his first term, but the administration ran out of time before the change could be implemented. Biden sought to block a similar proposal from being brought up again.

Trump said on the campaign trail that he would resurrect those efforts, and he requested that his administration move forward with the plans in one of his first-day orders.

OPM Director Scott Kupor told reporters the move would not restore the spoils system but rather keep top civil servants accountable for their performance.

“All this does is basically say: It doesn’t matter what your political views are — and you can have any political views — but if you allow them to interfere in your willingness to carry out lawful orders and directives, this is a mechanism for you to be removed,” Kupor said.

He said the shift would not create a loyalty test.

The administration changed the federal hiring process last year and now asks job applicants to write essays about their favorite Trump administration policy or executive order.