Trump closes down federal worker buyout offer after judge lifts hold

(Adobe Stock)

A judge on Wednesday lifted his pause on the federal government’s deferred resignation program, prompting the Trump administration to swiftly declare victory as it closed the offer to any more workers who might still have been mulling it.

The program—which encouraged federal workers to resign now with the promise of pay through September—had been halted since last Thursday, when U.S. District Judge George A. O’Toole Jr. temporarily stopped the Office of Personnel Management from moving ahead. Unions representing more than 800,000 federal workers had filed a lawsuit to stop the program, calling it an “arbitrary, unlawful, short-fused ultimatum.”

In his ruling, O’Toole wrote that the unions’ lawsuit could not succeed because they lacked standing to sue and because his court lacked jurisdiction. The unions, the judge said, were not directly impacted by the administration directive “but are challenging a policy that affects others, specifically executive branch employees.”

“This is not sufficient,” he wrote, for the unions to sue under the Administrative Procedure Act. O’Toole, who was nominated in 1995 by President Bill Clinton, did not opine on the buyout program’s legality.

The ruling left a serious question: How much time would federal employees who had not yet signed up have to throw their names in? None, it turned out. McLaurine Pinover, spokesperson for the Office of Personnel Management, said the program was closed as of 7 p.m. “There is no longer any doubt,” she said in a statement. “The Deferred Resignation Program was both legal and a valuable option for federal employees.”

Some 65,000 workers have already accepted the deal, according to the White House.

The decision out of the Massachusetts courthouse—and the Trump administration’s move immediately afterward—mark another milestone in a tumultuous period for federal workers, who have been left scrambling to make up their minds since the resignation offer, with the subject line “Fork in the Road,” first landed in their inboxes Jan. 28. Some workers jumped at the chance to leave. Others urged colleagues to reject a deal they consider a trap that will be used to eliminate staff without any payout.

The moves come as the Trump administration began initiating widespread layoffs across the federal government, starting Wednesday with probationary employees and with plans to extend deeper into the civilian federal workforce of 2.3 million. The drastic measures are led by representatives of Elon Musk’s U.S. DOGE Service, who are deployed across agencies with full oversight of the hiring process and one central mission: to shrink the sprawling bureaucracy and align it with Trump’s vision.

The unions had sought the right to sue by claiming the buyout program’s rapid deadline, along with what they characterized as its confusing and chaotic rollout, impeded the unions’ ability to carry out their missions of counseling and advocating for federal workers.

The deferred resignation was the administration’s effort to lure workers into leaving before initiating the more direct reductions-in-force – which can pose legal challenges, especially when it comes to union-protected employees.

Most of the 2.3 million federal workers were eligible for the deferred resignation deal, according to the White House. Agency heads could make exceptions, and military personnel, U.S. Postal Service employees, people working in immigration enforcement and national security, and thousands of Veterans Affairs employees in direct care roles were exempt, according to OPM. In fiscal year 2023, 115,900 federal workers either retired or quit from their government jobs, according to the Partnership for Public Service.

Employees at first had nine full days to respond. Then came the lawsuit.

Three government unions—the American Federation of Government Employees, the National Association of Government Employees, and the American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees—challenged the legality of the offer. They are represented by the nonprofit group Democracy Forward.

In a statement Wednesday evening, AFGE National President Everett Kelley called the ruling a “setback in the fight for dignity and fairness for public servants.”

The union’s lawyers, he said, are evaluating next steps.

“Importantly, this decision did not address the underlying lawfulness of the program. We continue to maintain it is illegal to force American citizens who have dedicated their careers to public service to make a decision, in a few short days, without adequate information, about whether to uproot their families and leave their careers for what amounts to an unfunded IOU from Elon Musk,” the statement continued.

The legal back-and-forth in recent days left tens of thousands of employees who already had accepted the deal in limbo. Some expressed regret that they’d jumped at the offer too quickly, now worrying they might have a target on their backs.

Amid the administration’s blitz of actions to slash the federal workforce and warnings of layoffs ahead, some employees saw the resignation plan as their best way out.

“My team has already been dismantled, so coming back to work, for me, I don’t even know what that would look like,” an OPM employee who opted into the offer previously told The Post.

Amid its pressure campaign, the administration also deployed an upbeat tone in its push to sell the program, pitching it as a chance to take a second job or travel to a “dream destination” while on the federal payroll. White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt called it “very generous.”

For some federal workers weighing the career decision, such messages seemed tone-deaf.

A lawyer with the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission who spoke on the condition of anonymity out of fear of reprisal characterized OPM’s emails about the offer as “breezily condescending.” Others were left scratching their heads about whether they were even eligible, trying to decipher the vague conditions of the offer and its uncertain legal standing.

Employees at the CIA who were previously exempted were told that they had become eligible to participate. Employees at the Department of Defense were also left confused when they received the resignation offer, despite OPM stating on its website that employees in positions related to national security were not included.

Dozens of lawsuits have been filed challenging Trump’s flurry of executive orders in the first weeks of his administration. Federal judges so far have halted his ban on birthright citizenship, issued temporary restraining orders against his freeze on federal grants and loans, and, at least for now, blocked the administration from putting 2,220 workers with the U.S. Agency for International Development on leave.