- Employee unions suing over Elon Musk-inspired offer to resign
- More than 40,000 employees accepted offer ahead of Feb. 6
A judge temporarily delayed the Feb. 6 deadline for millions of federal workers to decide whether to accept the Trump administration offer to resign with the promise of months of full pay, as a fight over the lawfulness of the buyout push goes forward.
US District Judge
Federal employees will receive formal notice of the judge’s order, a US Justice Department lawyer confirmed during the hearing. The judge didn’t hear arguments on the merits of the legal fight.
More than
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A spokesperson for the
“We are pleased the court temporarily paused this deadline while arguments are heard about the legality of the deferred resignation program,”
Federal employees received the buyout offer Jan. 28 via an email titled “Fork in the Road,” echoing a similar memo that
The unions contend that the administration caused “sheer chaos” by trying to import “Musk’s questionable private-sector business model to the federal government.” They argued the resignation offer was a pretext to clear out positions across federal agencies to refill with new hires “on an ideological basis.” They said that the directive was an illegally “arbitrary and capricious” move by OPM and promising pay that Congress hadn’t authorized in a budget past March.
The challengers argued that a temporary reprieve was needed because they would be “irreparably harmed by long-lasting impacts of the rushed and ill-informed choice the Fork Directive has foisted upon their members: as Plaintiffs expend resources that cannot be recovered trying to help their members make sense of OPM’s ever-shifting ultimatum, they are thwarted in counseling members for lack of consistent information, and they stand to lose members in significant numbers.”
(Updated with resignations, union president comment in the fourth paragraph.)
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Elizabeth Wasserman
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