Blog | Page 7 of 29 | Bell Law Group

Filing an OSC Complaint: What Federal Employees Need to Know

If you are (or were) a federal employee and you experienced a prohibited personnel practice (PPP) or have information about a PPP or another prohibited activity, you may be eligible to file a complaint with the Office of Special Counsel (OSC). Along with the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC) and the Merit Systems Protection Board (MSPB), the OSC is responsible for helping to protect federal employees’ rights and hold federal employers accountable when they violate the law. But the OSC can only help protect your rights if you come forward.

10 Key Provisions in Severance Agreements: What to Know Before You Sign

If you have received a severance agreement from your employer, it will be important to ensure that you make an informed decision about whether to sign. It may be in your best interests to negotiate some of the terms of your severance agreement as well. When drafting severance agreements, employers generally put their own best interests first, and while your severance agreement might seem fair on its face, there are some important legal, financial, and practical issues that you may need to consider.

How to Document Harassment in the Workplace

If you are a victim of sexual harassment in the workplace in New York, you have clear legal rights. Both Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 and the New York State Human Rights Law (SHRL) prohibit sexual harassment in the workplace, and victims of sexual harassment can—and should—take legal action to hold their employers accountable. To take legal action, you will need proof of the sexual harassment that you have experienced on the job.

What Not To Do if You Are a Victim of Discrimination in the Workplace

In a recent article, we discussed steps employees can take to document discrimination in the workplace. While documenting the discrimination you have experienced is critical (along with taking other steps to protect your legal rights), there are also several mistakes you need to be careful to avoid. Making these mistakes could make it more difficult to assert your legal rights effectively, and, in some cases, they could jeopardize your ability to take legal action altogether.

Trump Administration Moves Forward with Implementing Schedule F: What Federal Employees Need to Know

As we recently discussed, when President Trump took office earlier this year, one of his first actions was to sign an executive order that revived “Schedule F,” which is now called “Schedule Policy/Career.” While we noted in our prior article that the executive order was being challenged in court, President Trump is now moving ahead with efforts to implement Schedule F (or Schedule Policy/Career) in the federal workforce. As the Associated Press (AP) reported on April 18, 2025: “President Donald Trump has begun making one of the controversial personnel changes for government employees that was spelled out in the conservative Project 2025 blueprint for his second term. “He’s starting the process of reclassifying 50,000 federal employees under what’s known as Schedule F, which can make civil servants into political appointees or other at-will workers, who are more easily dismissed from their jobs.

Competitive Service vs. Excepted Service: Understanding Your Rights As a Federal Employee or Job Applicant

Most federal employees fall into one of two categories—they work in either: (i) competitive service, or (ii) excepted service. This distinction has important implications for federal employees’ and job applicants’ legal rights; and, as a result, it is important to know into which category your job (or your desired job) falls. Competitive Service Positions in the Federal Government Competitive service positions are those for which applicants must go through a competitive application process.