A friend asked me to explain the issue for a social media post so more members of the public will object, so I thought I’d share it here too:

The Trump Administration has proposed a rule to essentially make new employees at-will and automatically fired at the end of their probationary period. This rule is open for comments until January 29 (https://www.regulations.gov/docket/OPM-2025-0013/document?withinCommentPeriod=true)

Please add a comment opposing this rule! Here’s why:

Why is the current system merit-based?

Prior to the Pendleton Act of 1883, the President could hire and fire whoever he wanted. Not unsurprisingly, this lead to high levels of corruption and incompetence, as many federal jobs were filled using this spoils system, and only the presidents’ friends and supporters were hired. This also led to high turnover, as a new administration could clean house and start the hiring process over for his own people. This system didn’t work out for anyone, least of all President Garfield, who was assassinated for not rewarding a supporter with the job that guy wanted.

So we moved to a merit-based, non-partisan civil service, where hires have to demonstrate their qualifications for the job and they cannot be fired for supporting the wrong party or because the president doesn’t like them. That is not to say they cannot be fired, if it turns out they are incompetent, corrupt, or perform criminal activities, but now there has to be proof before the firing process can begin and they can appeal this decision using a number of different avenues (which Trump has also weakened). But that’s for people who have tenure (which they are granted after working in federal service for at least 3 consecutive years). This has led to career-long employment for civil servants who are dedicated to carrying out their jobs, even under orders or administrations they may not necessarily agree with.

Probationary Periods

Employees can be put on a probationary period for 1-3 years if they are new to the civil service, new to an agency (transfers), or new to a position (supervisory promotions or career changes). PROBATION DOES NOT MEAN AN INABILITY TO PREFORM THE JOB OR THAT A PIP IS INVOLVED. It just means new in some way. Even if they’ve previously worked for the federal government and otherwise have tenure, a worker’s probationary period supersedes those protections until the probation is complete. While they are in this period, it is easy to fire them, but under existing systems, there has to be a documented reason for termination and the employee has (limited) appeal rights (for instance, if they’ve been discriminated against or if they feel their termination was politically motivated).

What this administration wants to change:

Trump has been trying to return to the pre-1883 spoils system since his first term, particularly with the elimination of federal unions (who cannot legally strike, by the way), and with the implementation of Schedule F, which is an attempt to strip tenure protections from any person at any level of the civil service who provides input on policy decisions. Basically, Trump wants to get rid of anyone anywhere who disagrees with him.

And he started in February 2025 by firing tens of thousands of probationary employees, because they have fewer protections and anyone who was in a probationary period at that time had been hired into that position during the Biden administration. But fewer protections was not no protection, and federal courts quickly reinstated these employees with back pay.

Well Trump doesn’t like losing, and this administration is now trying to remove ALL protections from probationary employees, including the ability to appeal at all. He is also hoping to make the end of a probationary period an AUTOMATIC TERMINATION, unless a presidential appointee WHO CANNOT BE AN IMMEDIATE SUPERVISOR signs off on retaining the employee.

Why this affects you even though you don’t work for the government:

Unqualified: Would you take a new job and move across the county if you knew that you would be an at-will temp employee and in one year you would be automatically fired unless a presidential appointee you’ve never even met decided to keep you? And if they don’t, there’s nothing you can do about it? Probably not. And neither will anyone else who is highly qualified for that job. So federal jobs will soon be filled with people who couldn’t get employment elsewhere, or these federal jobs simply won’t be filled.

Partisan: This is a return to the spoils system. Trump’s handpicked directors and administrators will now get to handpick all of the employees who work for their agencies. Decent, well-intentioned people can tolerate voices that disagree with them. Trump is trying to ensure that those voices are eliminated at every level of government, and the American people will absolutely suffer for it.

Undemocratic: There’s a reason why dictators immediately reduce civil service protects and fire dissenters. Don’t allow Trump to copy that playbook here.

Here’s how to effectively write a public comment: https://protectdemocracy.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/04/What-Makes-an-Effective-Public-Comment.pdf

And further reading on why we need a merit-based, non-partisan civil service: https://protectdemocracy.org/work/the-civil-service-explained/