President Trump speaks with reporters while aboard Air Force One on June 5, 2026 en route to Chippewa Falls, Wis. Schedule Policy/Career is formerly known as Schedule F, and makes it easier to fire federal employees in “policy-related” jobs.
Samuel Corum/Getty Images
Organizations representing federal workers and good government advocates were quick to decry President Trump’s move this week to formally strip around 8,000 federal workers of their civil service protections, making them at-will employees, though the exact contours of the initiative’s scope remain unclear.Wednesday’s executive order implements Schedule Policy/Career, a new job category within the excepted service -- formerly known as Schedule F -- designed for career employees in “policy-related” positions who lack the removal protections in Title 5 of the U.S. Code and of the right to appeal adverse personnel actions. Under Office of Personnel Management regulations that took effect in March, whistleblower complaints from Schedule Policy/Career employees would no longer go to the U.S. Office of Special Counsel, instead being referred internally to the employing agency’s general counsel for review.The edict tasks agencies with reclassifying the roughly 8,000 federal workers into Schedule Policy/Career within seven days -- by June 10 -- as well as set up a separate bonus pool for those workers to recognize “outstanding work.” And OPM is expected to propose new regulations setting up a new governmentwide presidential award program for the job category.
