Why did Biden do that?
The creation of Schedule F was controversial, as it is estimated that tens or hundreds of thousands of career employees could lose their civil service protections,
[3] and that it would increase the number of political appointments by a factor of ten.
[28] Conversely, there was concern that political appointees of Trump, whose appointments are supposed to expire at the end of his term, could "burrow in" by being converted to Schedule F appointments that are harder to fire.
[29]
Eleanor Mueller, a writer for
Politico, wrote that the executive order "stripped job protections for many federal workers" by requiring federal agencies to classify "any worker responsible for the handling of policy" into a new category that would be exempt from hiring and firing protections and ineligible for representation as part of a union bargaining unit, and "would make it easier to remove civil servants who do not agree with the administration's policies" while easing the potential transition of current political appointees into permanent civil service jobs.
[30] Rebecca Beitsch, writing for
The Hill, wrote that unions were criticizing Trump's executive order as "the biggest change to federal workforce protections in a century, converting many federal workers to 'at will' employment".
[31] Eric Yoder, a
Washington Post journalist, said the order "could affect tens of thousands or more career positions involved in making or carrying out policy".
[32]
An official statement from
Infectious Diseases Society of America (IDSA) further stated that the executive order was "alarming".
[31] The six authors, all infectious disease specialists, and epidemiologists, wrote:
The executive order received support from conservatives. Rachel Greszler, a fellow at
The Heritage Foundation, said: "I really think that the order is unlikely to affect many of those workers because the overwhelming majority of federal employees are upstanding individuals, they're providing valuable knowledge and experience that the managers in the agency heads don't want to lose. It's only those
bad apples who are derelict in their duties, or they're outright trying to thwart their agency’s actions that would need to worry about their job security".
[4]
www.federalregister.gov
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