Tip Sheets
‘Replace employees with loyalists’: Labor expert warns of Trump civil service overhaul
February 5, 2026
Media Contact
Adam Allington
The Trump administration has finalized its overhaul of the U.S. government’s civil service system. The Office of Personnel Management’s new rule would reclassify high-ranking officials as at-will employees, meaning they could be fired for “intentionally subverting Presidential directives.”
Cathy Creighton
Director of Cornell University ILR Buffalo Co-Lab
Cathy Creighton, director of Cornell University's Industrial and Labor Relations Buffalo Co-Lab and former field attorney for the NLRB, says the new changes allow for unprecedented political control over career civil servants.
Creighton says:
“The new rule allows the president to reclassify possibly tens of thousands of federal employees, remove their civil service protections, and fire them at will. It also allows him to replace such employees with employees who are ‘loyal’ to the president.
“In his first administration, President Trump was frustrated at what he perceived was career staff resistance to his policies. In his second administration, Trump gives himself great latitude to simply reclassify employees as Schedule Policy/Career and then fire employees who don’t agree with him.
“This move also undermines union protections for such employees.”
