USPS and NRLCA strike deal on new contract

BlackHays

16 hours ago

Originally published USPS and NRLCA strike deal on new contract on April 21, 2025 15:45 by https://federalnewsnetwork.com/federal-newscast/2025/04/usps-and-nrlca-strike-deal-on-new-contract/ at Federal News Network

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The Postal Service struck a labor deal with another one of its unions. USPS reached a tentative agreement with the National Rural Letter Carriers’ Association, which represents more than 130,000 rural letter carriers. NRLCA members must vote to ratify the contract before it’s approved. Letter carriers represented by the National Association of Letter Carriers voted against a tentative contract earlier this year.
The Trump administration is putting more than a dozen formerly independent agencies under the direct control of the executive branch. The decision impacts everything from the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) to the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) to the Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC). The Office of Information and Regulatory Affairs spelled out these changes in a memo last week that lays out plans to achieve full compliance starting today, which includes naming a new regulatory officer and a second so that any new regulations coming from these agencies go through the OIRA process.
About 50,000 federal employees are on track to see their civil service protections removed. The Trump administration is pushing forward with making career federal workers in policy roles “at-will.” The Office of Personnel Management is amending civil service regulations to allow some feds to be converted to a new employment classification called “Schedule Policy/Career.” Employees who get reclassified will be moved outside of merit system principles, making it easier for agencies to fire them. The White House said the changes will add accountability and address poor performance. But critics say it’ll politicize the workforce, allowing for federal jobs to be filled based on alignment with the President, rather than expertise.
Two leading Democrats on the Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee are trying to get a handle on just how many federal employees have left the workforce since January 20th and the costs associated with the workforce downsizing. Sens. Gary Peters (D-Mich.), the ranking member of the committee, and Richard Blumenthal (D-Conn.), the ranking member of the committee’s permanent subcommittee on investigations, wrote to every agency leader asking for a host of data ranging from how many people took the deferred resignation offer to how many people were put on administrative leave, to the factors used to determine why people were laid off or put on leave. The lawmakers want agencies to respond by April 29 with initial data and then continue to provide updates every two weeks.
The General Services Administration is taking a “show me” approach to improving the government’s credit card program. GSA is giving vendors 60 minutes to show them a new and better way to manage the SmartPay program. This is the second request for information the agency released in the last month as part of its market research to modernize the credit card program. Vendors are to brief GSA and agency program coordinators on potential solutions for purchase, travel or fleet cards, including a systems demonstration for everything from card issuance to transaction monitoring to spend management. About 250 federal agencies and Native American tribes use the SmartPay program. GSA awarded the last SmartPay contract in 2017 to US Bank and Citibank.
Even after the governmentwide hiring freeze lifts later this summer, agencies will still be limited in their recruitment. The White House is capping agencies to one new hire for every four federal employees who leave the civil service. The Trump administration’s hiring freeze was initially supposed to expire this week. But the White House has doubled the length of the freeze by extending it until mid-July. Until then, agencies will not be able to fill or create any federal jobs, with few exceptions.
The Intelligence Advanced Research Projects Agency is working to streamline commercial data access for the entire intelligence community. In a new solicitation, IARPA said it will establish a contract for an IC Data Consortium. The goal is to reduce duplicative data and license spending across the intelligence community. The project is being sponsored by the Office of the Open Source Intelligence Executive. The goal is to streamline access to commercial information for the entire intelligence community. Proposals are due to IARPA by 12 p.m. on April 28.
The FBI said criminal scammers are impersonating employees at the agency’s Internet Crime Complaint Center. The FBI received more than 100 complaints about IC3 impersonation scams between December 2023 and February 2025. Most of the scam calls involve fake IC3 employees claiming to help real victims of cyber crimes to gain their financial information. The FBI said the IC3 will never directly communicate with individuals over the phone or on social media.

Originally published Federal News Network