“NTEU met with Office of Management and Budget (OMB) Deputy Director of Management, and now Acting Office of Personnel Management (OPM) Director, Margaret Weichert, regarding the Trump Administration’s federal workforce plans and priorities.
I was pleased to share the frontline federal employee perspective with Director Weichert. I made it clear that collaboration on federal workforce initiatives is significantly challenging in this environment given the administration’s policies and actions, including the Executive Orders and the pay freeze. In our meeting, we also discussed key hiring, staffing, and funding challenges at the IRS and at CBP.
I want to assure you that while I am always willing to listen to others and to express the realities on the ground for NTEU members across our 33 represented agencies, NTEU will continue to fight for what is best for you, our members, and the frontline workforce regarding our right to represent bargaining unit employees, and for federal employee compensation, workplace policy, and funding matters. In recent weeks and months, several think-tanks, human resource consultancies and contractors — ranging from the National Academy of Public Administration to the Volcker
Alliance to the MITRE Corporation — have released reports outlining various administrative and legislative initiatives and proposals ‘to modernize the federal workforce’ including in the areas of hiring, compensation, and performance. We intend to ensure that Congress and the administration are keenly aware of the short-sightedness and the futility of attempting to overhaul federal personnel laws, rules, and processes without actually involving or including its own employees and organizations such as NTEU.”