The Trump administration plans to slash the number of federal civilian employees, including some of the nearly 17,000 in Greater Cleveland. Doing so may not be possible since most of these workers have civil service protections.
Most civil servants can’t be discipled or fired arbitrarily. About two-thirds of the more than 2 million federal workers whose jobs may be on the line have what are called just cause protections, according to a recent analysis by the Pew Research Center. Most civil service jobs are awarded on a merit-based system, meaning that employment resulted from objective criteria, such as a written exam or specific qualifications.
These employees carry out the day-to-day operations of government, including as food safety inspectors, social workers and clerks. In Greater Cleveland, you’ll find civil servants working in places such as the Louis Stokes Cleveland VA Medical Center, the local Social Security Administration and U.S. Department of Agriculture offices.
Shrinking the government
The size of the federal workforce has remained about the same for over 50 years, even though the U.S. population has grown by 68% and federal spending has quintupled, according to the Brookings Institution.
But like many candidates before him, Donald Trump ran on a promise to shrink the size of government. His platform, Agenda 47, supported making it easier to fire federal workers, according to an AP analysis of the document. This includes reclassifying thousands of civil service jobs as at-will positions that wouldn’t have civil service protections. One of Trump’s recent executive orders aims to do this.
Russell Vought, Trump’s nominee for director of the Office of Management and Budget, has expressed contempt for civil servants. The nonprofit newsroom ProPublica obtained a 2024 speech in which Vought said he wanted to make civil servants so miserable in their jobs as to “put them in trauma.”
Arnold Scott, sixth district national vice president of the American Federation of Government Employees (AFGE), which covers Ohio, Indiana and Kentucky.
The civil service has always been a merit-based system based on fairness and opportunity regardless of your background.”
From ‘spoils system’ to civil service
“The civil service has always been a merit-based system based on fairness and opportunity regardless of your background,” said Arnold Scott, sixth district national vice president of the American Federation of Government Employees (AFGE), covering Ohio, Indiana and Kentucky.
The Pendleton Act of 1883 created a nonpartisan civil service system, which granted employment on the basis of merit. It replaced what was known as a “spoils system” in which government officials often awarded jobs to political supporters and others who pledged loyalty. The Civil Service Reform Act of 1978 was designed to give managers flexibility and improve productivity, but civil servants were still protected from “unfair or unwarranted practices.”
“It’s just frustrating dealing with this [Trump] administration that wants to replace employees who don’t care whether you’re a Democrat or a Republican — they’re there to get the job done — with employees who are there to take care of the administration and not the public. It’s like going back to the old patronage system,” Scott said.
What actions has the Trump administration taken to try to change the current civil service system?
In November, then-President-elect Donald Trump said that billionaires Elon Musk and Vivek Ramaswamy would lead the effort through the new Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE).
“Their work will conclude no later than July 4, 2026,” Trump wrote on X. “A smaller Government, with more efficiency and less bureaucracy, will be the perfect gift to America on the 250th Anniversary of The Declaration of Independence. I am confident they will succeed!” (Ramaswamy has since left to run for governor of Ohio.)
Since assuming office Jan. 20, Trump has taken actions that could greatly thin the civil service ranks. These include ordering a hiring freeze and declaring federal DEI (diversity, equity and inclusion) and DEIA (diversity, equity, inclusion and accessibility) mandates, policies and programs illegal. Civil servants in these programs were placed on paid administrative leave and could have been laid off as early as last week.
An executive order Trump signed his first day in office seeks to make policy-related civil service jobs at-will positions without protections because “any power they have is delegated by the president, and they must be accountable to the president.” The order comes from Trump’s first administration, when it was called Schedule F and now is known as Policy/Career. The order failed to take hold the first time around.
On Friday, Trump said that his administration would not approve any collective bargaining agreements reached with workers within 30 days of his inauguration. The national AFL-CIO in a statement responded that failing to honor contracts that had already been negotiated “is union busting, plain and simple.”
Unions say other administration actions appear aimed at getting large numbers of civil servants to quit. They include eliminating remote work for most federal employees. Private companies sometimes use this tactic to force employees, who view remote work as a perk, to resign. Last week, the administration sent emails to federal employees telling them that if they resigned by Feb. 6, they could be paid through the end of September. Many, including several Democratic members of Congress, have questioned whether the offer is possible since Congress hasn’t funded it.
On Wednesday, AFGE and AFSCME, the American Federation of State County and Municipal Employees, filed suit against the Trump administration for trying to erode civil service protections.
“You can’t easily destroy the civil service with executive orders, which seems like what he’s trying to do,” Scott said.
What job protections do federal workers have?
All civil service workers, regardless of whether they are in unions, have protections. Civil service laws and regulations make it difficult to dislodge even one employee – not to mention thousands or hundreds of thousands – without meeting specific criteria and undergoing a detailed process. For example, the Office of Personnel Management issued a 2024 ruling saying that employees couldn’t lose their jobs over disagreements with leadership
“Under the law, however, a mere difference of opinion with leadership does not qualify as misconduct or unacceptable performance or otherwise implicate the efficiency of the service in a manner that would warrant an adverse action,” the ruling states.
The workers belonging to AFGE and other unions also have protections under collective bargaining agreements. This doesn’t mean that they can’t be laid off, but it means that the terms of any layoffs have to be negotiated.
For example, Scott said the union believes the Trump administration’s offer for federal workers to resign and then get paid for several months is something that would have to be negotiated. The offer was emailed to more than 2 million federal employees, many of whom are not union members. The email encouraged employees who were not “reliable, loyal, trustworthy” to resign.
Scott said the union is telling its locals to submit a demand to bargain to the agencies where members work. He said if the agencies refuse to bargain, the union is telling its locals to file a grievance or other measure on the grounds that the government is in violation of existing contracts and statutes.
Since the offer emails went to all employees, not just those in policy-making positions, some in organized labor believe even low-ranking civil servants are now in the political crosshairs. Brian Pearson, the head of the North Shore AFL-CIO Federation of Labor, Northeast Ohio’s largest labor organization, is among them. About 6,500 of the federation’s 85,000 members are federal workers.
“They’re trying to displace people with experience and knowledge with loyalists,” he said. “These aren’t cabinet officials. This is somebody working in our community.”
Northeast Ohio has ties to the civil service system’s creation
Pearson said fighting to preserve civil service jobs and protections in Greater Cleveland is fitting.
“It’s part of our history,” he said. “The assassination of Northeast Ohio’s own President James Garfield led to the creation of civil service.”
Replacing the “spoils system” with a merit-based one was a public debate even before Charles Guiteau “pestered the Garfield administration for a job before shooting the president” in 1881, according to the website of the National Park Service, which runs the James A. Garfield National HIstoric site in Mentor. Garfield’s assassination fueled efforts to get civil service legislation passed.
Given this history, Pearson believes it is also fitting that federal workers here fight to preserve civil service protections. He was preparing to battle to save federal jobs even before Trump took office, based on actions from the president’s first term such as trying to make some civil servants at-will employees.
Pearson said he is not alone.
“Our members are ready to fight,” he said.
