Attorneys for Federal Employees — Nationwide

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Today at a Glance

• Schedule Policy/Career: OPM has published step-by-step implementation guidance, and agencies must notify the roughly 8,000 reclassified employees of their new at-will status by this Wednesday, June 10.

• Defense Bargaining Rights: The House Armed Services Committee voted to bar the Defense Department from spending fiscal 2027 funds to carry out the executive order that stripped collective bargaining from most DoD civilians.

• Critical-Position Pay: The White House authorized basic pay of up to $400,000 for as many as 400 national-security investment positions, using a narrow statutory authority that allows agencies to exceed the usual federal pay caps.

Top Stories:

1. OPM Spells Out How Schedule Policy/Career Will Work — Reclassified Employees Must Be Notified by June 10

Source: Federal News Network, June 8, 2026

TL;DR: After the June 3 executive order moving about 8,000 career positions into a new excepted-service category called Schedule Policy/Career, the Office of Personnel Management (OPM) published implementation guidance on Monday, June 8, detailing what the change means in practice. Reclassified employees are now treated as "at-will," and OPM says agencies no longer have to use Performance Improvement Plans (PIPs) or the advance-notice-and-reply steps that normally precede discipline; removals become "one-step actions," and OPM circulated template conversion notices and a sample termination notice for agencies to use. Affected employees lose the adverse-action procedures and Merit Systems Protection Board (MSPB) appeal rights provided under Chapters 43 and 75 of Title 5, and they cannot appeal the reclassification itself. OPM states that pay, leave, benefits, and reduction-in-force (RIF) rules do not change, and that whistleblower protections and protections against prohibited personnel practices (PPPs) still apply — though PPP complaints would now route through the agency's own general counsel, while whistleblower disclosures may still go to the Office of Special Counsel (OSC). Agencies must give reclassified employees notice of their new status by Wednesday, June 10, and update personnel files to match. Several organizations, including the National Active and Retired Federal Employees Association (NARFE) and Democracy Forward, are suing over the change, which remains in active litigation.

For federal employees, this means:

• If your position is on the White House's list, expect a notice and an acknowledgement form by June 10. Read carefully what it says about at-will status and the loss of MSPB appeal rights before you sign, and keep a copy.

• Reclassification does not erase every protection. Whistleblower disclosures to OSC, the anti-discrimination statutes, and the 45-day deadline to contact an EEO counselor all still apply regardless of your new classification.

• With PIPs and advance notice no longer required, your own documentation matters more. Keep records of your performance, your assignments, and any communications that bear on a possible adverse action.

Legal Insight:

Schedule Policy/Career rests on the exclusion at 5 U.S.C. § 7511(b) for positions of a confidential, policy-determining, policy-making, or policy-advocating character, which removes the Chapter 75 removal procedures and "for cause" standard of 5 U.S.C. § 7513 and the Chapter 43 performance framework, along with the MSPB appeal those chapters carry. What does not change by reclassification: whistleblower protection under 5 U.S.C. § 2302(b)(8) and the federal-sector EEO process, including the requirement to contact an EEO counselor within 45 days of a discriminatory action under 29 C.F.R. § 1614.105(a)(1). Because a reclassification can convert long-standing appeal rights into an at-will posture quickly, an employee who receives a notice — or who is then disciplined — should consult a federal employment attorney promptly to preserve any remaining deadlines.

2. House Armed Services Committee Votes to Block Funding for the Order Ending DoD Civilian Bargaining Rights

Source: Roll Call, June 5, 2026

TL;DR: The House Armed Services Committee approved its fiscal 2027 National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA) on the evening of June 4 by a vote of 44-12, after working through roughly 900 amendments. Among the adopted measures was an amendment from Rep. Donald Norcross (D-N.J.), passed 30-26, that would bar the Defense Department from using fiscal 2027 funds to implement Executive Order 14251. That order, signed March 27, 2025, excluded a large share of the federal workforce — including most DoD civilian employees — from collective bargaining on national-security grounds. Three Republicans (Reps. Mike Turner, Don Bacon, and Derrick Van Orden) joined Democrats to adopt the amendment; Committee Chairman Mike Rogers (R-Ala.) opposed it, arguing it would restrict the President's authority to manage national-security agencies. A similar Norcross provision cleared the House last year but was dropped from the final defense bill in negotiations with the Senate. The House is expected to take up the full bill before the July recess, the Senate Armed Services Committee plans to mark up its version next week, and EO 14251 remains the subject of separate litigation in federal court.

For federal employees, this means:

• This is a committee vote, not a law. The provision would take effect only if it survives passage by the full House, the Senate, a House-Senate conference, and the President.

• DoD civilians whose contracts were terminated under EO 14251 should follow both the NDAA and the pending court cases. Bargaining status in these agencies has shifted more than once and may shift again.

• If you have a pending grievance or arbitration tied to a terminated contract, do not assume deadlines are paused. Track your filing dates, because procedural clocks can keep running while the larger legal questions are unresolved.

Legal Insight:
Federal-sector collective bargaining is governed by the Federal Service Labor-Management Relations Statute, 5 U.S.C. Chapter 71 (§§ 7101–7135). EO 14251 invokes the national-security exclusion at 5 U.S.C. § 7103(b)(1), which lets the President exclude an agency or subdivision from the statute when its primary function is intelligence, counterintelligence, investigative, or national-security work and bargaining cannot be applied consistent with national-security requirements. Whether that exclusion was lawfully applied to broad swaths of the DoD civilian workforce is being tested in court; an employee whose grievance, arbitration, or representation rights are affected may want to consult a federal employment attorney to protect any deadlines while the question is litigated.

3. White House Approves Critical-Position Pay of Up to $400,000 for National-Security Investment Roles

Source: Federal News Network, June 1, 2026

TL;DR: A presidential memorandum issued the prior Friday directs OPM, in consultation with the Office of Management and Budget (OMB), to set basic pay as high as $400,000 a year for up to 400 positions in what the administration calls the "National Security Investment Workforce." The memo targets investment, engineering, financial, and legal specialists working on critical minerals, advanced materials, supply-chain resilience, and related programs the administration ties to national defense and economic security. It relies on the government's critical-position pay authority, which allows agencies to exceed the usual Executive Schedule pay caps when a higher rate is needed to recruit or retain exceptionally qualified people. OPM will allocate the positions across agencies, approve the individual pay rates, and oversee how the authority is used. The memo describes the higher pay as necessary to recruit scarce talent quickly. Separately, the administration's fiscal 2027 budget request does not include an across-the-board civilian pay raise.

For federal employees, this means:

• This is a narrow authority — up to 400 positions governmentwide — not a general pay increase. The pay of the vast majority of federal employees is not affected by this memo.

• Critical-position pay is tightly controlled. Each position must be justified, and OPM and OMB must approve the rate; agencies cannot set these salaries on their own.

• If you work in one of the targeted fields, watch for agency-specific announcements. These roles are filled and priced through OPM's allocation process, not the ordinary General Schedule step structure.

Legal Insight:
The memo uses the critical-position pay authority at 5 U.S.C. § 5377, which permits OPM, with OMB concurrence, to fix rates of basic pay for a limited number of critical positions above the rates that would otherwise apply; a rate above Level I of the Executive Schedule requires the President's approval. The authority is deliberately narrow and capped in number, and it does not change the pay-setting rules for General Schedule employees outside the designated positions.

Mindful Moment of the Day

The Dashboard Reality Check

A dashboard full of overdue items, pending approvals, or unresolved cases can make you feel like you are failing, even when the workload is bigger than one person. Notice the moment your mind turns numbers into a judgment about your worth. Take a breath and say, “These are data points, not my identity.” Then pick the next clean action: update one note, move one case, send one clarification, or close one loop. Mindfulness helps separate the reality of the workload from the extra weight of self-blame. You can care deeply about the mission without letting the numbers define you. 

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