White House offer to federal employees sparks concerns, union opposition

In one week, a deadline will arrive for federal workers to accept what appears to be a “buyout” if they choose to resign. The offer, which came in an email to federal workers from the government’s Office of Personnel Management (OPM), said that federal employees who resign by Feb. 6 can be paid through September 2025, with a later communication saying there would not be an obligation to perform their duties through that point.

But the move is seen by some federal workers and other experts as a power grab by the new Trump administration. It could have major implications for a White House that has aggressively moved to limit the federal government’s footprint, testing the limits of presidential power as well as the legal authority of the office to make such an offer.

According to reporting from NPR, attorneys and unions are urging federal workers not to hastily accept the offer. The OPM email, with a subject line reading, “A fork in the road,” is not actually a buyout, according to Jim Eisenmann, a partner at Alden Law Group who represents federal employees.

“[The offer is] not based on any law or regulation or anything really other than an idea they cooked up to get federal employees out of the government,” Eisenmann told NPR.

By outward appearance — and for federal workers who are anxious about being forced to return to work in the office — it could look like a “soft landing” as they aim to figure out what to do next. But the offer itself said there is “no guarantee other things won’t happen to them between now and then, like they won’t get fired for some other reason or they won’t get laid off pursuant to a reduction in force,” according to Eisenmann.

Jim Thompson, a former U.S. Department of State employee and current director of government capacity at the Federation of American Scientists, urged federal employees In a post on LinkedIn to seek input from an attorney and an accountant before making a final decision.

The program, which OPM calls “deferred resignation,” lacks “crucial specifics about benefit continuation, retirement implications, and future employment rights that would typically be included in federal workforce reduction programs,” Thompson said. He also characterized the decision window as “artificially short,” which may not offer enough time for employees to seek input from qualified experts or advisers about the implications of such a move.

Federal employee unions are urging their members not to accept the offer, with some going as far as calling the policy a “resignation threat.”

“It’s written pretty clearly that if you don’t take this thing, this so-called offer, you may not have a job,” Matthew Biggs, president of the International Federation of Professional & Technical Engineers (IFPTE), told NPR.

Biggs referred to part of the email that said OPM “cannot give you full assurance regarding the certainty of your position or agency but should your position be eliminated you will be treated with dignity and will be afforded the protections in place for such positions.”

The IFPTE represents scientists, engineers and cybersecurity experts who work for agencies including NASA. Biggs called into question what the impact would be on national security should a large swath of such employees take up the offer.

On Wednesday, White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt rejected suggestions that the move is designed as a “purge” of government workers.

“That’s absolutely false,” she said. “This is a suggestion to federal workers that they have to return to work. And if they don’t, then they have the option to resign, and this administration is very generously offering to pay them for eight months.”

When it comes to the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD), the return-to-office mandate has the vocal support of Scott Turner, the nominee to lead the agency. He spoke of his support for it during his Senate confirmation hearing earlier this month.

“The reports I’ve read [say] that HUD is at the bottom when it comes to employees returning to work,” Turner said during the hearing. “I’ve been on many teams in my career, and I believe we need to bring the HUD staff back to work, back to the office, to do the job and empower them to serve the American people.”

Others have pointed out that the OPM email’s subject line is identical to one received by employees at Twitter after Elon Musk’s 2022 purchase of the social media platform, which he later renamed X. Reporting by The New York Times suggested that Musk, who has taken an important role in spearheading “government efficiency” at the White House, has turned much of his attention to OPM and the size of the federal workforce.