Roughly 50,000 federal employees could lose workforce protections under new OPM rule

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The Office of Personnel Management finalized a new classification Thursday for career federal workers in policy-related roles that will effectively make them easier to terminate. The new “Schedule Policy/Career” creates an administrative category for nonpolitical “career” federal employees who work in roles that are defined as influencing policy. Workers added to that classification will be converted to “at-will” employees and will no longer be eligible for adverse action procedures or the ability to appeal terminations. Roughly 50,000 employees will be subject to the change, per an estimate in the final rule. Despite the administration’s assertion that the new schedule is for “accountability” and will not be subject to political loyalty tests, federal employee advocates have long argued the policy is a thinly veiled attempt to strip career employees of safeguards in an effort to replace them with workers who are politically aligned with the president. A Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency order published Thursday directs federal agencies to stop using “edge devices” like firewalls and routers that their manufacturers no longer support. It’s a stab at tackling one of the most persistent and difficult-to-manage avenues of attack for hackers, a vector that has factored into some of the most consequential and most common types of exploits in recent years. New edge-device vulnerabilities surface frequently. Articles Mentioned • Roughly 50,000 could lose federal workforce protections under new OPM rule via FedScoop: https://fedscoop.com/federal-employees-lose-workforce-protections-under-opm-rule/ • CISA tells agencies to stop using unsupported edge devices via CyberScoop: https://cyberscoop.com/cisa-bod-directive-unsupported-edge-devices-firewalls-routers/ #federalgovernment #federal #federalgovernmentjob #opm #government #governmentjobs #personnel #workforce #federalworkforce #federalworkers #federalemployees #workforceprotections #governmentemployees #governmentworkers #governmentnews #trumpadministration #scottkupor #cisa #cyber #news #cybersecurity #cybernews #edgedevices #routers #usgovernment #firewalls #madhugottumukkala #dhs #homelandsecurity #informationtechnology #govtech #technology #technews #governmenttech #jobprotection #schedulef #careerworker #employeeprotection #employmentnews #governmentemployment Follow The Daily Scoop Podcast on Social Media • https://www.twitter.com/DailyScoopPod • https://www.linkedin.com/company/the-daily-scoop-podcast/ • https://www.facebook.com/thedailyscooppodcast About The Daily Scoop Podcast We discuss the latest news and trends facing government leaders on such topics as technology, management and workforce. The program will explore headlines of the day as well as in depth discussions with top executives in both government and industry. The Daily Scoop Podcast is released every weekday afternoon. For the latest insights from Washington, you can subscribe to The Daily Scoop Podcast on Apple Podcasts, Soundcloud, and Spotify. https://fedscoop.com/show/the-daily-scoop-podcast/