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Civil Rights for Civil Servants
Hear Shaun Southworth and Lydia Taylor explain federal employee rights, public service, workplace systems, and the people navigating them.
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Hidden OMB “Spend Plans” and Risks for Federal Staff
In recent weeks, watchdog groups have revealed a troubling development at the Office of Management and Budget (OMB). Although a federal court ordered OMB to restore its public appo...
Federal Employee Shutdown Survival Guide
If funding lapses after September 30, both furloughed and excepted employees stop receiving pay. The 2019 Government Employee Fair Treatment Act guarantees back pay—including overt...
GSA Rescinds PBS RIF Notices: What Returning Employees Need to Know
The General Services Administration (GSA) has just made a surprising move: rescinding RIF notices for hundreds of employees in the Public Buildings Service (PBS). Many of you now f...
Supreme Court Puts FTC Independence on the Line
On September 22, the Supreme Court allowed President Trump to remove Federal Trade Commissioner Rebecca Slaughter, despite the Federal Trade Commission Act’s explicit protections a...
Federal Employee Rights in a Government Shutdown
With just over a week until the September 30 funding deadline, federal employees are left in limbo. Unlike prior years, when the Office of Management and Budget (OMB) published eve...
Religious Accommodation Rights for Federal Employees
For decades, agencies could deny religious accommodations by pointing to any “more than tiny” cost or inconvenience. That changed in Groff v. DeJoy. Now, under Title VII, an agency...
No, One-Size-Fits-All Doesn’t Cut It”: What HHS/CDC Did This Week—and Why Blanket Bans on Accommodations Violate the ADA and the Rehabilitation Act
By Shaun Southworth — Attorney for Federal Employees
- What just happened: CDC told staff it was pausing approvals of telework as a reasonable accommodation (RA)—and indicated ren ...
Reassignment and Disability Retirement for Federal Employees
For federal employees navigating the reasonable accommodation process, one question looms large: what if your agency says it can’t accommodate you? The law provides an answer. Befo...
CDC Paused Disability Telework Approvals, Then Hit Hold After Pushback
Last week, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) announced that it was pausing approvals—and even renewals—of telework as a disability accommodation. The agency poin...
NASA’s New “Spy Agency” Label and Federal Employee Rights
At the end of August, the President signed an executive order that reclassified several science and service agencies — including NASA, the National Weather Service, and parts of th...
OPM Pauses Relocation Push: What Federal Employees Should Do Now
In February, the Office of Personnel Management (OPM) ordered many remote employees living more than 50 miles from an OPM worksite to accept a management-directed reassignment (MDR...
Deferred Resignation Reversals: What Federal Employees Should Know
This year’s “Fork in the Road” Deferred Resignation Program (DRP) was framed as a way to streamline the federal workforce. Many employees at the Department of Labor and other agenc...
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