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The new Trump administration gave federal workers an unusual offer this week: Return to the office full time, or resign and accept a buyout.
According to an email reportedly sent to government employees on Tuesday night (later posted on the Office of Personnel Management’s website) workers have until Feb. 6 to decide if they want to stay in their roles, or leave and keep their pay and benefits for the next eight months. If they do take the buyout, they will also be exempted from all in-person work requirements until Sept. 30, 2025.
There are roughly 2.2 million civilian Federal workers, and about half have had the option to work remotely, according to a report released last year from the Office of Management and Budget.
To incentivize workers to quit, the administration went so far as to provide them with a mock resignation document so they could leave their jobs more easily. And perhaps most fascinating, the offer appears to borrow from Elon Musk’s playbook. The Office of Personnel Management’s online memo was reportedly posted under the headline “Fork in the Road,” the same subject line Musk used to lay off half of Twitter’s workforce—about 3,700 employees—after he purchased the company in the fall of 2022. He has since renamed it “X.”
Trump is “taking a page from the private sector playbook,” says Mark Goldstein, a partner in Reed Smith’s labor and employment practice. He notes that it’s typical to see these kinds of voluntary resignations from companies, usually prior to mass layoffs or severe cost cuts, but seeing it in the public sector is “alarming.”
While Trump’s offer may seem tempting to federal workers, some union groups are advising workers to hold off on responding until more guidance is available. The National Treasury Employees Union, which represents employees in 36 federal agencies and offices, sent a message to workers Tuesday telling them not to take the buyout, the Wall Street Journalreports.
“Make no mistake: this email is designed to entice or scare you into resigning from the federal government,” the message said. “We are reviewing the email closely and will have more information tomorrow. However, we strongly urge you not to resign in response to this email.”
Senator Tim Kaine shared a similar message on the Senate floor Tuesday night, warning federal employees not to cave to the deal presented. “The President has no authority to make that offer. There’s no budget line item to pay people who are not showing up for work,” he said, emphasizing the President’s poor track record of managing contractors. “Don’t be fooled.”
Legal experts are advising the same, and note that it’s not quite clear whether the President has the authority to offer such a deal. “It does seem a little rash,” says Alex Granovsky, an employment lawyer at firm Granovsky & Sundaresh who specializes in severance. He adds there’s a chance that employees who take the deal can lose out on pay somewhere down the line if the Supreme Court determines that Trump was never allowed to offer such a deal in the first place.
“If you agree to this deal you’re putting a lot of faith in an email,” he says. “That could be fine, but it’s like putting your faith in a handshake.”
Brit Morse
brit.morse@fortune.com
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Watercooler
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