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Washington, D.C. – Safeguards to ensure the U.S. federal workforce remains professional and merit-based would be dramatically weakened under legislation expected to pass a House committee today.

The National Treasury Employees Union opposes all three anti-employee bills because they are yet another in a long line of attacks on our nation’s public servants.

“Taken together, these measures threaten decades of successful federal labor-management efforts as well as damage the ability of labor to represent bargaining unit employees and to work with agency managers to provide the best service to the American people,” NTEU National President Tony Reardon wrote to members of the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee.

If passed into law, these bills would undercut long-standing merit system principles and introduce loopholes for political appointees to favor or disfavor employees based on qualities unrelated to skill or performance.

H.R. 559 would undo decades of established federal employment law by eliminating the due process rights of all federal employees, subjecting them to unfair and discriminatory actions by political and career managers without any ability to defend themselves. It also eliminates the grievance process, which is a faster, cheaper and more effective way for agencies to manage day-to-day workplace conflicts than going to court.

“Lack of key due process rights for federal employees will only serve to allow discrimination, sexual harassment, whistleblower retaliation and other forms of management retaliation to go unchecked at federal agencies, allowing increased politicization in federal personnel actions,” Reardon wrote.

Reardon reminded the lawmakers that employees’ ability to seek a hearing or challenge an agency decision does not mean management has no power to discipline or fire a poor performing employee. He urged Congress to instead consider more and better training for supervisors on existing rules for discipline and removal.

The second bill, H.R. 6391, would undercut the Merit Systems Protection Board in its work to oversee employee appeals and protect employees from prohibited personnel practices.

“A core function of the Board is to ensure that agencies are not doling out disproportionate discipline resulting in unequal justice, and this language would fundamentally eliminate any true appeals process in the federal sector if the MSPB could unilaterally decide not to grant an employee the opportunity for an oral hearing,” Reardon wrote.

Finally, H.R. 5300 would eliminate collective bargaining on any information technology issues in the federal government, an unusually broad attack on the rights of federal employees who know first-hand the importance of a safe and secure federal IT environment because their personal information was stolen in massive cyber-attacks on the Office of Personnel Management. Current law already prohibits collective bargaining over an agency’s IT actions or decisions. However, federal employees must maintain their current right to bargain if such actions adversely impact them.

“This bill is unnecessary as agency heads already have the authority needed to secure their IT environment without requiring a loss in limited collective bargaining rights,” Reardon wrote.

NTEU represents 150,000 employees at 32 federal agencies and departments.