Fork in the Road
On Jan. 28, millions of federal employees received an email from the U.S. Office of Personnel Management, offering workers the chance to resign and retail all pay and benefits until Sept. 30. They had until 7:20 PM EST on Feb. 12 to reply and officially resign.
After several labor unions representing government employees filed lawsuits claiming the administration didn’t have the legal standing to offer these types of buyouts, O’Toole, the judge who presided over the ruling, issued a temporary pause to the directive.
However, on Feb. 12, he ultimately ruled that the unions themselves didn’t have any legal standing to challenge the buyout program because these organizations weren’t directly affected.
As such, federal employees were able to quit and sign up for the deferred resignation program and continue to be paid and receive benefits until the end of September. According to McLaurine Pinover, a spokesperson for the Office of Personnel Management, around 75,000 federal employees accepted the buyout offer.
However, the current administration was reportedly hoping to have anywhere between 5% to 10% accept the deal.
Instead, only less than 5% did. While it could save billions of dollars for the federal government, it may not be enough for Trump’s goal to cut trillions from the federal budget.
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Learn MoreHow labor unions are responding
Time will tell what the true effects of the buyout program are, though there are some legal experts questioning whether the agreement will remain valid. Reportedly, the Department of Education was warned that the buyout plan could be canceled.
In the meantime, the labor unions representing federal employees aren’t happy about the ruling and plan on fighting back.
In the same American Federation of Government Employees (AFGE) National statement, Kelley said that “is illegal to force American citizens who have dedicated their careers to public service to make a decision, in a few short days, without adequate information, about whether to uproot their families and leave their careers for what amounts to an unfunded IOU from Elon Musk.”
The offer to pay salaries and benefits may not be set in stone, as the spending laws are set to expire next month — more specifically March 14.
Afterwards, there may be no funding or any ruling that would help to fund the buyout program. Worse case scenario, these workers are left with no income source that was promised to them and without any legal recourse because of the agreement they signed.
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