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Folks are understandably worried about Schedule Policy/Career, which is a new excepted service schedule that this Administration created on Inauguration Day. With the Office of Personnel Management's issuance of regulations on Schedule P/C in February, we are likely not far from an Executive Order that would officially move thousands of positions to Schedule P/C.
And as the Executive Order that issued on Inauguration Day made clear, the purpose of Schedule P/C is to make employees easier to fire. Because, in the Administration's view, employees would lose due process protections and protections against prohibited personnel practices when they are moved to Schedule P/C.
With all of this looming, any information can seem like good information. But that's not true. There are videos circulating that make it sound like employees can sign away statutory rights that NTEU believes they would retain even if they are shifted to Schedule P/C.
The litigation position of NTEU and others is that those statutory rights, which you have accrued based on your time in the competitive service, persists even if your position is moved to Schedule P/C. If that position prevails in litigation, that will be the law of the land.
That is true regardless of any piece of paper that an agency puts in front of you. If your agency tells you that you are being moved to Schedule P/C and asks you to sign something like this template form, NTEU's advice is to sign it, even though we disagree with what it says about your rights; otherwise, your agency could use your refusal to sign as a basis for firing you. But even if you sign it, if NTEU prevails in its Schedule P/C litigation or in securing legislation or regulatory revisions that confirm your continued statutory rights, those rights will continue to exist. If you want to include a notation on the form indicating that you are signing under protest or merely acknowledging receipt of the form through your signature, that is fine; but if you are fearful of including that type of notation or if your agency will not allow it, you should rest assured that you will not be signing away statutory rights that NTEU is fighting to vindicate.
The need for accurate information during this tumultuous period is one of the many reasons that NTEU and its chapters must stay strong. For those of you in agencies affected by the Exclusions Executive Order, NTEU urges you to sign up for NTEU Dues Direct using the link that has been sent to your personal email address.