Federal Unions Sue OPM Over New 'Suitability' and Forced-Ranking Performance Rules

Federal Unions Sue OPM Over New 'Suitability' and Forced-Ranking Performance Rules

On Monday, August 24, 2026, a coalition of four major federal employee unions representing approximately half of all civilian federal workers filed a sweeping lawsuit in the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of California against the Office of Personnel Management (OPM). The lawsuit, AFGE v. OPM, seeks to block two newly finalized OPM regulations that significantly expand the Trump administration's power to fire civil servants while stripping them of independent appeals and collective bargaining protections.

The plaintiffs include the American Federation of Government Employees (AFGE), the National Federation of Federal Employees (NFFE), the International Federation of Professional and Technical Engineers (IFPTE), and the American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees (AFSCME).

The Two Contested OPM Overhauls

The lawsuit targets two separate regulatory overhauls implemented by OPM in the summer of 2026, which the unions argue violate the 1978 Civil Service Reform Act (CSRA) and the Administrative Procedure Act (APA):

1. The Suitability Rule (June 2026)

This regulation allows federal agencies to apply the same strict "suitability and fitness" standards typically reserved for job applicants to all current, incumbent federal employees. Under this rule, OPM and individual agencies can execute expedited, "suitability-based" firings for post-appointment conduct.

Crucially, the rule removes the independent Merit Systems Protection Board (MSPB) from the appeals process for these suitability actions. Instead, employees can only appeal a suitability firing to OPM itself.¹ The unions argue this creates an unconstitutional, self-reviewing administrative structure. As the complaint states:

"Because an employee can only appeal a suitability action with OPM itself, the same agency (OPM): (1) establishes the use of suitability actions for removing employees, (2) takes such actions against employees, and (3) purports to determine whether its own actions were proper. In short, OPM has granted itself plenary and, in its view, unreviewable authority to fire employees across the government. It is hard to imagine a scheme that is more contrary to Congress’ design."

Union leaders also warned that the lack of transparent standards regarding who at OPM makes these suitability decisions makes the rule "an open invitation to fire public servants who speak out."

2. The Performance Management Rule (July 2026)

This regulation overhauls the federal employee evaluation system by legalizing "forced distribution" (forced-ranking curves)—a practice that had been explicitly banned for decades to prevent favoritism. The rule also strips employees of their long-held rights to challenge their annual performance ratings through negotiated union grievance and arbitration procedures.²

The unions argue that forcing managers to grade employees on a curve rather than against objective, absolute performance criteria violates the CSRA. They contend that if multiple high-performing employees are in the same small unit, managers will be forced to artificially downgrade some of them, introducing rampant subjectivity and political favoritism:

"A small team with only high performers will need to rank some as less high performers. Further, if two employees have the same objective performance rating and the new ‘distribution’ requires that they receive different summary levels, this is an invitation for favoritism based on subjective and impermissible factors."

Executive Consolidation vs. Merit Principles

The lawsuit is the latest front in the ongoing legal battle between the executive branch and federal labor groups. While OPM argues these rules are necessary to "close an irrational gap" in suitability standards and address "inflation" in annual employee evaluations, union leadership views them as a coordinated effort to dismantle the apolitical civil service.

AFGE National President Everett Kelley stated:

"Congress built the civil service on a simple principle — that public servants are hired, judged and fired on merit, not on politics. OPM does not have the authority to write those protections out of the law, and no statute gives it the sweeping power it has claimed here. OPM wants to fire people itself and then review its own decision. That is not accountability, and it is not what Congress wrote."

NFFE National President Randy Erwin added:

"This is yet another blatant effort by the Trump administration to make it easier to unjustly discipline and fire dedicated federal workers and diminish the critical public services they provide every day."