By Nate Raymond
BOSTON (Reuters) -Unions representing federal workers filed a lawsuit on Thursday challenging a decision by U.S. President Donald Trump’s administration to include what they said is a partisan “loyalty question” in more than 1,700 job posts since October’s start.
Three unions including the American Federation of Government Employees alleged in a lawsuit filed in federal court in Boston that a question the Office of Personnel Management mandated job applicants be asked as part of an overhaul of the civil service is unconstitutional and violates free-speech rights.
The White House did not respond to a request for comment.
The plan unveiled in May by OPM, the main human resources agency for the federal government, fleshed out an executive order the Republican president signed in January aimed at “restoring merit” to the center of the hiring process.
The hiring plan mandated that applicants for federal civil service jobs respond to four open-ended essay questions. While most of the questions related to job performance, the unions said one “instead elicits the political views of applicants and political agreement with the current president.”
“How would you help advance the President’s Executive Orders and policy priorities in this role?” the question asks. “Identify one or two relevant Executive Orders or policy initiatives that are significant to you, and explain how you would help implement them if hired.”
The unions, which also include the American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees and National Association of Government Employees, said the question was antithetical to over a century of the federal civil service being nonpartisan.
The lawsuit argues that OPM is violating applicants’ free-speech rights under the U.S. Constitution’s First Amendment by conditioning employment on political loyalty with Trump and by forcing would-be applicants who do not support him to either praise his policies to get a job or avoid speaking at all.
“This isn’t just illegal, it also harms our members and all Americans by depriving them of opportunities to serve their country and by undermining a skilled, nonpartisan workforce,” AFGE National President Everett Kelley said in a statement.
The lawsuit also argues the question’s inclusion is arbitrary and violates the Privacy Act.
(Reporting by Nate Raymond in Boston; Editing by Leslie Adler)
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