President Donald J. Trump is Reforming the Civil Service to Work for the American People

PUTTING TAXPAYERS FIRST: President Trump signed an Executive Order requiring agencies to negotiate better union contracts in a more efficient and transparent manner.

• The order directs agencies to negotiate better contracts with Federal unions, holds down costs, promotes performance and accountability, and creates a Labor Relations Working Group.
• It will eliminate years of costly drawn-out bargaining by encouraging agencies to conclude labor negotiations in less than a year.
  • Agencies pay for union negotiators' salaries, so it hurts taxpayers when bargaining drags on for years. The salaries for union negotiators cost $16 million in 2016 alone.
• Americans will now be able to gauge for themselves whether they got a good deal. The order requires union contracts to be published in a public online database, promoting transparency.

WORKING FOR THE PEOPLE: The President's Executive Order reducing spending on taxpayer-funded union activities will ensure Federal employees prioritize work for the American people.

• The order directs agencies to work on renegotiating contracts to cut taxpayer-funded union time by an average of two-thirds, reducing union business interfering with agency operations.
  • The Social Security Administration estimates it could complete 135,000 more retirement applications or 17,000 more disability determinations annually, if taxpayer funding for union activities were redirected to public service functions.
• Those Federal employees authorized to act on behalf of unions will be permitted to spend no more than 25 percent of their time on union business.
  • Over 470 Veterans Affairs employees spend 100 percent of their duty hours working for a labor union instead of serving veterans. This includes 74 full-time nurses.
• The order cuts back on lobbying or pursuing a grievance against an agency on taxpayer-funded union time. Taxpayers should not pay for unions to sue or lobby the government.
• Agencies will charge rent to employees that use Federal office space for non-agency business and stop covering travel expenses for non-agency business.
• This order will save taxpayers at least $100 million a year, when fully implemented.

STRENGTHENING THE MERIT SYSTEM: Through Executive Order, President Trump is making procedural changes to strengthen the merit system and streamline the removal of poor performers.

• The current system makes firing employees for poor performance or misconduct prohibitively difficult, undermining the Federal Government's merit principles.
  • It takes 6 months to 1 year to remove a tenured Federal employee for poor performance, plus an average of 8 more months to resolve appeals. Tenured Federal employees are also 44 times less likely to get fired or laid off than private sector workers.
  • Tenured Federal employees have stolen agency property, run personal businesses from work, and been arrested for using drugs during lunch breaks and not been fired.
• The order facilitates the efficient removal of poor performing employees and makes it hard for those employees to mask adverse employment information when seeking re-employment at another agency, while upholding Federal merit principles.
• Agencies will be required to report information on disciplinary actions and management of poor performers to the Office of Personnel Management for publication.