Podcast
Civil Rights for Civil Servants
Hear Shaun Southworth and Lydia Taylor explain federal employee rights, public service, workplace systems, and the people navigating them.
Listen to the podcastNews, rights, tools & learning
Federal Employee Resource Center
Search timely updates, plain-English explainers, practical guides, podcasts, and mindful-action resources. Start with the question you are trying to answer.
You Won at the MSPB but the Agency Appealed: Why You Should Still Be Paid While You Wait
MSPB interim relief is the rule that answers a painful scenario. You won your Merit Systems Protection Board case in March. The Administrative Judge ordered you back to work. The a...
Can the Postal Service Reject Your Ballot? The USPS Mail Ballot Rule, the Whistleblower, and the Court Order
The USPS mail ballot rule is about to collide with the election calendar. On September 4, North Carolina mails the first ballots of the 2026 midterms. At the same time, the Postal ...
Paid 24.72% Under Market, Then Frozen: What the 2027 Federal Pay Freeze Letter Really Says
The federal pay gap is the number almost nobody is covering. Most of the reporting on the 2027 federal pay freeze has focused on the zero itself, or on what next year might bring. ...
OPM Cut the Workload Question: What Changes When Your Agency Runs Its Own Employee Survey
OPM's proposed rule on the Federal Employee Viewpoint Survey would cut the required questions from sixteen to ten, and one of the questions on the chopping block is "My workload is...
IRS Audit Collections Fell 35% the Year It Lost a Quarter of Its Audit Staff, Watchdog Finds
IRS audit collections fell 35 percent last year, according to a new report from the Treasury Inspector General for Tax Administration, in the same year the agency lost roughly 27 p...
Shutdown Averted Until December 11: What the Continuing Resolution Means for Federal Employees
A government shutdown on October 1 has been averted for federal employees, pending the President's signature. The House voted 370 to 48 to pass a continuing resolution that keeps a...
Missing Paragraphs and Phantom Citations: The Drafting Errors Inside the EEOC's Proposed EEO Overhaul
The EEOC proposed rule that would rewrite how every federal employee's discrimination complaint gets decided contains something you would not expect in an officially published regu...
$1.5 Trillion for Defense, $0 for Your Raise: The Math Behind the 2027 Federal Pay Freeze
The 2027 federal pay freeze was justified by the White House on the grounds that a raise would be "irresponsible" ā€” a savings of $26 billion, by the administration's own letter to ...
One Whistleblower, Millions of Mail Ballots: Inside the USPS Report Congress Just Published
A USPS whistleblower report published by Senator Richard Blumenthal's office on September 1 warns that a rushed new digital system for overseeing mail ballots could delay ā€” or outr...
Federal Judge Orders DOGE to Turn Over IRS Taxpayer-Data Communications by September 14
DOGE must turn over its internal communications about the IRS taxpayer-data sharing deal by September 14 ā€” a federal judge has ordered it. After more than a year in which DOGEā€™s ro...
The Fork in the Road, 18 Months Later: 20,557 Replacements Were Hired
You remember the Fork in the Road email ā€” the subject line, and the one-word reply: Resign. Eighteen months later, the numbers are in: the government hired your replacements. Somet...
Petty Friday: Who Is Andrea Lucas? The EEOC's Chair ā€” and Its Most Effective Opponent
Itā€™s Petty Friday ā€” our weekly commentary for federal employees, where we take the weekā€™s civil rights news with a little humor and a lot of receipts. This week: Andrea Lucas, the ...
More ways to learn
Choose the format that helps you understand what is happening.
The Mindful Federal Employee is part of a broader public-education ecosystem from Shaun Southworth, Lydia Taylor, and Southworth PC. Use the resource that fits the question and the moment.
Mindfulness
Work Peacefully
Use practical mindfulness tools to create space between workplace pressure and the decision you make next.
Explore mindfulness resourcesAbout the people behind the work
Shaun Southworth & Lydia Taylor
Meet the federal employment attorneys behind this public-education work and the podcast Civil Rights for Civil Servants.
Meet Shaun & LydiaThe Federal Employee Briefing
The important developments, without the all-day scroll.
Join 3,900+ federal employees getting sourced workforce news and practical next steps on weekdays. It is a free public-service resource from Southworth PC.