Barely installed in the oval office, Donald Trump, a pen screwed in hand, is working to sign chain decrees. On immigration, customs duties, gender, but also on the organization of the public service. And among the first rules enacted, the prohibition of telework. “To dry out the swamp”, according to the White House formula. In filigree, push the maximum of civil servants to the resignation, and thus reduce the staff of the public service stamped with “ineffective” by the 47th president of the United States and its new close guard.
Thus, federal agencies have until Friday, January 24, 5 p.m. (Washington time) to adjourn their distancing labor policy. And thirty days to define the exemptions from this new ban. In its note, the government encourages agency bosses to circumscribe these exceptions to “a handicap, an eligible medical condition or another imperative reason certified by the agency director and the employee supervisor”.
Elon Musk, lightened state craftsman?
Degreasing the American administration? An electoral promise, which has gradually become a Trumpist trove as Elon Musk takes up the place in the republican campaign. It was during an exchange between the two mid-August men on X, that Donald Trump evokes the idea of a structure whose first purpose would be to start the United States. At the head this ministry, which would not really be one, Elon Musk of course. Since his two -time buyout, Tesla’s boss has been identified as the man in the purges organized in the name of efficiency.
Last November, the billionaire of South African origin, installed since at the helm of the “DOGE” – the new “Department of Government efficiency” – was gargling on its social network to have dismissed 80 % of employees of X in Less than two years. A few days later, he took the pen in the Washington Post With its co-director, Vivek Ramaswamy. “DOGE intends to work with people appointed in agencies to identify the minimum number of necessary employees […] Employees whose posts are deleted deserve to be treated with respect, and the objective of the DOGE is to facilitate their transition to the private sector “.
And the couple at the head of this new State Department to plead, last fall already, for the implementation of the measure which should soon come into force: “require federal employees that they go to the office five days per week would lead to a wave of voluntary departures that we welcome.
The “comeback” of SCHEDULE F
To lighten the bureaucracy across the Atlantic, Donald Trump’s strategy and his team is not just about incentive. It also consists in facilitating layoffs in the public service. Le Chantre du Maga (for Make America Great Again) also restored one of the creations of his first mandate repealed by Joe Biden: the “Schedule F”. A decree making it possible to reclassify tens of thousands of federal officials in political employees, thus depriving them of the traditional protections offered by the status of federal agent.
And although the decree provides that federal employees “are not required to personally or politically support the current president or the policies of the current administration”, they remain “required to faithfully implement administration policies at best of their capacities, in accordance with their constitutional oath and the devolution of executive power to the only president “. And the text to specify that non-conformation in the regulations would be a “reason for dismissal”.
A decision that immediately sparked out of shields. Shortly after the signing of the decree, the National Union of Treasury Employees (NTEU) – a government union which represents employees of 37 federal agencies – brought legal action to have the decree “consists in administering loyalty tests Politicians with ordinary federal employees who have sworn to respect the Constitution and serve their country, “Cingle the President of the NTEU, Doreen Greewald in a statement.
As of the evening of his inauguration, Donald Trump boasted on his social network, Truth social, announcing the dismissal of four senior government officials appointed by Joe Biden. A message scratched by his now clutch “You’re Fired”, which he will gladly continue to agitate for the next four years.