By Anita Hamilton
As a Feb. 6 deadline nears for federal employees to resign voluntarily with a soft exit, the Trump administration is tightening the screws in an effort to get firmer commitments from employees weighing the offer.
The initial email from the Office of Personnel Management that landed in workers' inboxes on Jan. 28 sounded almost too good to be true. Anyone who resigned by email was offered full pay through the end of September without ever having to set foot back in the office. "It really is a fair & generous offer," Tesla CEO Elon Musk, who is heading up President Donald Trump's sweeping cost-cutting efforts, posted on X the following day.
But it turns out that accepting the offer isn't quite as simple as typing "Resign" in a subject line, then hitting send. A template form for deferred-resignation agreements distributed to federal agencies this week requires employees to agree to new, more restrictive terms.
The biggest caveat is that while those accepting the offer are bound by it, the government is free to revoke it. A new OPM memo released Tuesday afternoon confirms this loophole, adding "Were the government to backtrack on its commitments, an employee would be entitled to request a rescission of his or her resignation." It doesn't state whether such a request would be honored.
Secondly, workers are still on the hook to keep working through the end of February before being placed on administrative leave. The Tuesday memo reiterated that ethical standards prohibiting outside employment might still apply through Sept. 30, but noted that "by minimizing an employee's job duties and limiting the number of matters in which he or she is involved, administrative leave reduces the potential for conflicts with any outside employment."
Lastly, the template agreement acknowledges the elephant in the room that many critics of the plan have pointed out: the government can't guarantee payment through the end of the fiscal year in September because it is only funded through March 14. If no funding deal is reached by then and the government shuts down, employees will be placed on furlough and then receive back pay once funding resumes.
Trump senior advisor Stephen Miller said on Friday that a "large number" of workers had already accepted the deal. The OPM declined Barron's request for hard numbers, saying they don't plan to share that information until after the Feb. 6 deadline.
As the clock ticks on the deferred-resignation offer, the government is also making things more uncomfortable for the more than one million federal civilian workers who currently either telework or have fully remote positions.
A Friday night memo to agency heads from the president sought to invalidate any collective-bargaining agreements that were executed in the last 30 days of the Biden administration. Because pre-existing remote work agreements were extended in new contracts for Education Department employees, for example, they might lose that perk. A Monday follow-up memo from OPM provides additional guidance on potentially revoking or renegotiating all existing telework arrangements.
It's unclear whether the administration can enforce such a policy, however, according to legal experts. In invoking a 2010 case decided by the Supreme Court to justify revoking agreements finalized shortly before taking office, "this policy like several others if effectuated will likely find itself determined by the courts as to its lawfulness," George Washington University law professor Aram Gavoor told Barron's. "The courts have the final say," he added.
It may have more leverage renegotiating telework arrangements. "The Administration can certainly direct agencies to revise those telework plans, and for some agencies conditions might justify a substantial reduction," said Georgetown Law professor David Super.
Federal law actually requires agencies to have telework plans, he adds. "But that statute, like those on rescissions, federal worker buy-outs, and collective bargaining, requires consideration of the particular circumstances of individual agencies."
Several unions representing federal workers, lawmakers including Virginia Democrat Sen. Tim Kaine, and Democratic Attorneys General from 12 states have all urged workers to either reject or use caution when weighing the offers. "These supposed offers are not guaranteed," said New York Attorney General Letitia James.
"Union contracts are enforceable by law, and the president doesn't have the authority to make unilateral changes to those agreements," union leader and president of the American Federation of Government Employees, Everett Kelley, said. "AFGE members will not be intimidated. If our contracts are violated, we will aggressively defend them."
But the abrupt firings or placement on administrative leave of workers in agencies including the Justice Department, Education Department, and U.S. Agency for International Development present a bleak alternative to those who don't take the offer and attempt to resist the new administration's policies.
Such fears may explain why the government is expecting a spike in last-minute resignations in the final hours before the Thursday deadline.
Write to Anita Hamilton at anita.hamilton@barrons.com
This content was created by Barron's, which is operated by Dow Jones & Co. Barron's is published independently from Dow Jones Newswires and The Wall Street Journal.
(END) Dow Jones Newswires
February 04, 2025 17:14 ET (22:14 GMT)
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