The Office of Personnel Management says critics are circulating falsehoods about an incentive offered by the Trump administration for workers to resign.
Federal employees considering the buy-out offer initiated by President Donald Trump shortly after his inauguration should ignore “misinformation” from government worker unions, according to a U.S. Office of Personnel Management (OPM) spokesman.
“Union leaders and politicians telling federal workers to reject this offer are doing them a serious disservice,” OPM’s Director of Communications McLaurine Pinover told The Epoch Times. “This is a rare, generous opportunity; one that was thoroughly vetted and intentionally designed to support employees through restructuring.”
“Instead of spreading misinformation and using workers as political pawns, they should be making sure federal employees have the facts and freedom to make the best decision for themselves and their families,” Pinover added.
The buyout offer allows federal workers who accept it to receive full pay and benefits coverage for eight months, exempts them from newly issued orders to return to work at their official duty stations on a daily basis, and protects them against Reductions-in-Force (RIF) processes that are expected to begin in the near future in many federal departments and agencies.
There are 2.3 million civilian federal workers, the vast majority of whom are careerists who receive above-average pay and benefits as well as a host of legal job protections overseen by OPM and the Merit Systems Protection Board (MSPB).
The average federal employee salary, according to OPM data, is $106,382. The median average household income for all Americans is $75,149, according to the U.S. Census Bureau.
The buyout offer must be accepted by Feb. 6 and OPM officials today circulated a “template contract” to all agencies and departments that will be the basis for the voluntary resignations under the “Deferred Resignation Program (DRP).”
The OPM comments came in response to multiple statements from the American Federation of Government Employees (AFGE) and Democrats in Congress saying that the buyout offer was not legal and President Donald Trump lacks the legal authority to make such a proposal.
The union and its allies also said the new president wants to politicize the federal workforce, and that SpaceX founder Elon Musk initiated the buyout offer as part of his efforts leading the presidential advisory commission, the Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE).
“There is not yet any evidence the administration can or will uphold its end of the bargain, that Congress will go along with this unilateral massive restructuring, or that appropriated funds can be used this way, among other issues that have been raised,” AFGE told its more than 800,000 members in a Feb. 3 email.
“We are encouraging AFGE members NOT to resign or respond to this email until you have received further information and clarification,” the union continued.
A senior OPM official, speaking on background, told The Epoch Times that, contrary to widespread media reports quoting representatives of the AFGE, the country’s largest civil service union, the DRP is a legal contract that “provides binding assurance they will not be subject to future RIFS, not be expected to work, and their pay will be protected even if there is a lapse in appropriations.”
The Epoch Times has reached out to the union for comment about the OPM’s complaints.
Sen. Tim Kaine (D-Va.) echoed the AFGE skepticism, saying in a Senate floor speech that “there’s no budget line item to pay people who are not showing up for work.”
“Don’t be fooled. He’s tricked hundreds of people with that offer. If you accept that offer and resign, he’ll stiff you just like he stiffed the contractors,” Kaine alleged.
Former OPM General Counsel Joseph A. Morris told The Epoch Times today that rulings by the U.S. Supreme Court and other federal courts in recent years make clear that the president, as the chief executive of the federal government, has widespread constitutional authority to take actions to ensure efficiency and honesty in government operations, including terminating positions and offering incentives to resign.
“I am not aware of any case law before the MSPB or, more importantly, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit, where an appealing employee challenged a removal, let alone did so successfully, where the removal was directly done or ordered by the president,” Morris said in an email to The Epoch Times.
Morris pointed to the Supreme Court’s Collins v. Yellen decision in 2021 that held “the President must be able to remove not just officers who disobey his commands but also those he finds ‘negligent and inefficient.’”