The Office of Personnel Management has proposed a rule, "Improving Performance, Accountability and Responsiveness in the Civil Service." Comments on the rule can be submitted until May 23.

The proposed rule would remove civil-service protections from a new category of federal employees called “Schedule Policy/Career" (P/C). These P/C employees would be at-will workers without the right to challenge terminations or appeal reclassification to the Merit Systems Protection Board (MSPB). The proposed rule would give the President sole authority to reclassify federal employees as P/C.

The proposed rule would make it easy to fire hundreds of thousands of federal employees and replace them with political loyalists. This would make it easier to purge the government of the people and services that hold corporations accountable, protect labor rights, ensure clean air and water, provide healthcare and Social Security benefits, and enforce the safety regulations that improve the lives of Americans.

The Friends of the Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) is very concerned  about the potential impact on federal statistics of this proposed rule, and has provided templates for taking action online.

The Federal Unionists Network (FUN) has provided an extensive Public Comment Toolkit, available as a Google document. 

See also the editorial, "Institutionalizing politicized science" in Science, May 8, by Donald Moynihan and Pamela Herd.