(Washington) The Trump administration announced Thursday that it would relax labor laws for some 50,000 federal civil servants, whose dismissals will be made easier, after a year in which the Republican government has already dismantled part of the American state apparatus.
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The Office of Personnel Management (OPM), the agency that manages the federal government’s workforce, is preparing to publish in the official journal on Friday these new rules which will transform the status of nearly 2% of total federal employees and bring it closer to that of civil servants appointed by the president.
Until then, only the latter could be dismissed at the discretion of the tenant of the White House, and without recourse.
In the 255 pages of documents, OPM says the new rules are intended to “strengthen employee accountability and responsiveness of the U.S. government, while addressing long-standing challenges to performance management in the federal workforce.”
OPM assures that these positions will continue to be “filled on a non-partisan basis.”
The new rules also provide that the whistleblower process will now be managed within the agencies, and no longer by an independent body.
The main union of federal civil servants, AFGE, denounced Thursday’s announcements as a “direct attack” against the public service.
“When people see the turmoil and controversy in Washington, they’re not asking for more politics in the state, they’re asking for competence and professionalism. OPM is doing the opposite of that,” condemned its president Everett Kelley in a statement.
According to him, the government wants to “replace competent professionals with politicized lackeys”.
White House spokesperson Karoline Leavitt said the new rules were “a good thing.”
“I think that if people don’t do their job well, if they don’t show up, if they don’t work hard on behalf of the president, they are not welcome at all,” she added during a press briefing.
During his 2024 presidential campaign, Donald Trump promised to cut public spending and reduce bureaucracy.
Upon his return to power, he entrusted this task to his wealthy ally Elon Musk by appointing him to head a new government efficiency commission, DOGE.
DOGE and the White House then increased incentives for the departure and layoffs of civil servants, eliminated certain public agencies, and drastically cut international aid.
According to OPM, some 317,000 civil servants left the federal administration in 2025. Of these, approximately 154,000 did so through the departure incentive program.
