The Solidarity Docket
June 4, 2026
This week, President Trump signed an executive order to place thousands of career federal positions into Schedule Policy/Career. That order, the litigation and legislative responses it has triggered, and a new Federal Labor Relations Authority decision with immediate implications for union contracts are this week's main items.
President Signs Order Transferring Senior Career Positions to Schedule Policy/Career
On June 3, President Trump signed the executive order that formally transfers “approximately 8,000” career federal positions into Schedule Policy/Career. Agencies have seven days from the date of signing to notify affected employees and conform their personnel records accordingly. That deadline falls on June 10.
Employees moved into Schedule Policy/Career are exempted from Chapter 75 adverse action protections. They have no right to appeal removals for misconduct or poor performance to the Merit Systems Protection Board, and they cannot challenge their reclassification into the schedule. In most cases, they will also lose eligibility for student loan repayment assistance and for recruitment, retention, and relocation incentives.
Approximately 97% of the affected positions are at the GS-15 level or above. A smaller number of GS-13 and GS-14 positions are included.
A Note on the Numbers
Press coverage has described the order as affecting "8,000 positions" and, in the same reporting, "8,000 employees." The discrepancy is compounded by the White House’s appendix.
One electronic count of the appendix yields approximately 4,800 unique position description numbers. That figure is notably lower than the 8,000 cited in press coverage. The gap is not explained in the executive order or in public statements from the administration.
Possible explanations include that the 8,000 figure reflects estimated employee headcount rather than PD numbers, that some positions are captured by the order through a mechanism other than the appendix, or that some PD numbers account for multiple filled positions. As the full impacts are known, we will update you here at Rise Up.
Litigation and Legislation: The Response to Schedule Policy/Career
Cases challenging Schedule Policy/Career were already pending in federal district court when the executive order was signed. The order's signing activates deadlines in at least two of them.
In National Treasury Employees Union v. Trump, pending in the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia, the amended complaint is due within 14 days of the order, placing that deadline at approximately June 17.
In Government Accountability Project v. Office of Personnel Management, also in the District of Columbia district court, the amended complaint is due within 21 days, placing that deadline at approximately June 24. Public Employees for Environmental Responsibility v. Trump, pending in the District of Maryland, was already actively litigating when the order was signed. AFGE joined that lawsuit on behalf of its members last year. We will update the litigation tracker as amended complaints are filed and the cases progress, and as new cases are filed.
Max Stier, president and CEO of the Partnership for Public Service, said the order has opened the door to a new spoils system and makes nonpartisan public servants who swore an oath to the Constitution vulnerable to removal without explanation or right of appeal. He noted that polling commissioned by the Partnership found 66% of Americans oppose the politicization of the civil service, including majorities of Republicans, Democrats, and independent voters.
On the legislative front, the Saving the Civil Service Act has been introduced in both chambers of Congress. The House bill is sponsored by Rep. James Walkinshaw of Virginia, who assumed sponsorship following the death of the bill's original sponsor, the late Rep. Gerry Connolly. The Senate bill is sponsored by Sen. Tim Kaine of Virginia. The legislation would prevent reclassification of competitive service positions outside merit system principles without express congressional consent, cap the number of conversions at any agency, require individual employee consent for any conversion, and mandate congressional reporting on all conversions.
FLRA Upholds Disapproval of Pre-Inauguration Agreement; § 7301 Analysis Is Now Mandatory in Negotiability Briefing
On June 1, the Federal Labor Relations Authority issued a decision with significant implications for union contract disputes, and for collective bargaining agreements that were signed in the final weeks of the Biden administration.
Under federal labor law, any new collective bargaining agreement must pass through a review period before it takes effect. The head of the agency has thirty days to approve or disapprove the agreement. If the agency head approves it, or if thirty days pass without action, the agreement takes effect.
In this case, the National Treasury Employees Union and the Federal Trade Commission signed an interim collective bargaining agreement on the evening of January 19, 2025, roughly eighteen hours before President Trump's second inauguration. Outgoing FTC Chair Lina Khan signed the agreement on the agency's behalf. In an email exchange that same evening, the agency's chief of staff told the union that the chair's signature was "sufficient for agency-head review" -- in other words, that signing the agreement also counted as approving it. On January 31, President Trump issued a Presidential Memorandum directing agency heads to disapprove lame-duck collective bargaining agreements. On February 17, newly designated FTC Chairman Andrew Ferguson disapproved the agreement.
The Authority majority upheld the disapproval and dismissed the union's challenge.
On the agency-head review question, the majority held that the chair's signature executed the agreement -- that is, made it official -- but did not also function as approval.
On the President's memorandum, the majority held that a presidential memorandum carries the same legal weight as a presidential executive order for purposes of directing how executive-branch employees conduct themselves.
Member Wagner concurred in part and dissented in part. She would have ruled for the union, finding that Chair Khan's personal signature on the agreement, combined with the effective date listed in the agreement and the chief of staff's same-day email, amounted to a waiver of the review period. Even if it had not, Wagner argued that federal labor law protects agreements that are already in effect from being undone by regulations issued after the fact -- and that principle should have shielded this agreement from the President's January 31 memorandum.
The dissent raised a further concern: the majority's reasoning has no clear stopping point. If a presidential memorandum alone is sufficient to require the disapproval of any agreement that conflicts with it, the legal standard requiring that a disapproved agreement be "contrary to law, rule, or regulation" loses practical meaning.
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We will continue to follow updates as Schedule P-C impacts federal workers, and update our Litigation Tracker weekly as well.
In Solidarity,
Suzanne Summerlin
General Counsel Rise Up: Federal Workers Legal Defense Network
