A federal judge on Thursday paused the Trump administration’s deadline for more than 2 million federal employees to decide whether to resign or stay in their jobs by the end of the day, giving labor unions more time to challenge the plan’s legality.
U.S. District Judge George O’Toole of Boston issued a temporary restraining order and scheduled a hearing for Monday.
The Trump administration’s lawyers argued that extending the deadline until the very last day would “significantly disrupt the expectations of the federal workforce, inject tremendous uncertainty into a program that scores of federal employees have already benefited from, and impede the administration’s efforts to reform the federal workforce.”
But after the judge issued his order, White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt said the administration was grateful for the extension “so more federal workers who refuse to show up to the office can take the administration up on this very generous, once-in-a-lifetime offer.”
Unions representing many of the country’s federal workers say the new Republican administration’s “unprecedented offer” violates the law.
“We will continue to aggressively defend our members’ rights,” said Everett Kelley, president of the American Federation of Government Employees, one of the unions opposing the proposal.
Workers were given little more than a week to accept the administration’s blanket buyout, which union officials claim did not follow federal procedures for reducing the size of the workforce.
Federal employees who resigned by February 6 were promised eight months’ pay and benefits through September.
However, Congress has not approved funding for federal agencies past March 14.
Unions have warned workers who are considering Trump’s offer that there is no guarantee the president will follow through.
They’ve also complained that the offer is missing basic information such as whether they’ll still be required to work for the government, whether they’ll be able to work in the private sector while still receiving federal government pay, and how their pensions, health insurance, and other benefits and rights will be affected.
Critics say the administration’s goal is to make working for the federal government so unpleasant that employees will leave.
The administration warned federal employees on Tuesday that if they did not accept the buyout, they would be furloughed, and that “the majority of federal agencies will be downsized,” with the exception of the Defense Department.
Federal employees who remain in their jobs have been told that, among other new “reforms” across the government, they must return to in-person work, embrace new “performance standards” and be “reliable, loyal, and trustworthy” in their work.
Trump is attempting to significantly reduce the size of government while also replacing bureaucrats perceived to be hostile to his agenda with loyalists.
According to Reuters, approximately 40,000 federal workers had accepted the offer as of Thursday morning. This represents approximately 2% of the workforce, which falls short of the White House’s target of 5% to 10%.
