The National Treasury Employees Union is suing the Trump administration in an attempt to gain records of career federal employee positions that may be targeted for removal of job protections.

NTEU’s lawsuit, filed last week against the Office of Personnel Management, alleged that OPM violated the Freedom of Information Act by not responding to the union’s FOIA request from August. The union had requested documentation of employees who will be potentially impacted by the Trump administration’s “Schedule Policy/Career” order, which seeks to make tens of thousands of career federal employees at-will workers and easier for agencies to fire.

“The government cannot hide information that is critical to safeguarding workplace rights and protections for frontline federal employees in multiple agencies across the country,” NTEU National President Doreen Greenwald said in a statement. “We expect OPM and the administration to identify as soon as possible which federal jobs are being targeted so we can do everything we can to stop the reclassifications.”

Under federal statute, agencies are required to respond to FOIA requests within 20 days. In “unusual circumstances,” that timeframe can be extended for an additional 10 days.

But NTEU said in its lawsuit that OPM has not responded to the FOIA request at all, and that the time period for responding has lapsed. NTEU submitted its initial FOIA request on Aug. 20.

“There is no legal basis for OPM’s failure to respond to NTEU’s request or for its failure to produce the requested records within the statutory time period,” NTEU wrote.

The federal union is arguing that OPM’s failure to respond to the FOIA request is unlawful, and calling for a release of the requested records.

An OPM spokesperson did not immediately respond to Federal News Network’s request for comment.

NTEU’s push for information comes after President Donald Trump in January signed an executive order to revive the federal employment classification previously known as “Schedule F.” Though it is now called “Schedule Policy/Career,” the effort mirrors a former executive order from Trump’s first term that sought to remove job protections from broad swaths of the career federal workforce.

OPM proposed regulations for implementing the new employment classification in April. Although the regulations are not yet finalized, they have been moved into the “final rule stage,” and are slated for possible publication by the end of November, according to the White House’s regulatory agenda.

The White House website states that the final rule will impact “policy-influencing positions” and that the rule’s implementation will “increase career employee accountability.”

All federal positions that are reclassified as “Schedule Policy/Career” will become at-will, and employees will no longer be able to appeal adverse actions against them.

“This will allow agencies to quickly remove employees from critical positions who engage in misconduct, perform poorly, or obstruct the democratic process by intentionally subverting Presidential directives,” OPM states in the regulatory agenda item.

The Trump administration has generally argued that the reclassifications will hold federal employees more accountable and provide more flexibility to agencies. But federal unions, as well as many lawmakers and workforce experts, have said reclassifying employees in this way will lead to politically motivated firings, and an erosion of the apolitical nature of the career civil service.

Earlier this year, OPM also published guidance to set initial expectations for agencies to implement the Schedule Policy/Career employment classification. The guidance targets a wide range of federal positions that may be subject to reclassification.

OPM has estimated that about 50,000 career federal employees in “confidential, policy-determining, policy-making, and policy-advocating” positions will be reclassified as a result of Trump’s order. But OPM’s latest estimate is on the lower end of the scale: Documents from Trump’s first term showed that around 200,000 career federal positions could have their job protections stripped.

NTEU previously sued the Trump administration in January after the initial Schedule Policy/Career executive order was released. The first lawsuit alleges that Trump’s order violates established federal hiring principles and the due process rights of federal employees.

Combined, Greenwald said the two lawsuits from NTEU “are about making sure that the American people have their government services delivered by federal employees who were hired based on merit and skill, not partisan affiliation.”

The post Federal union sues OPM, seeking release of ‘Schedule Policy/Career’ records first appeared on Federal News Network.

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