Feb. 12 (UPI) — A U.S. District Judge on Wednesday refused to block the Trump administration’s deferred resignation program for federal employees after issuing two stays, the first legal victory for the Trump administration.
In Boston, Judge George O’Toole, who was appointed by President Bill Clinton in 1995, had extended the deadline for 2.3 million federal employees to take the buyout offer of eight months of pay and benefits until Monday.
Two weeks ago, the U.S. Office of Personnel Management set a Feb. 6 deadline for the program with no guarantee they will keep their jobs. In addition, workers have been required to return to their offices fulltime.
Roughly 3.3% of the federal workforce, 75,000 employees had taken the deal, according to according to the the agency. The Trump administration had hoped 5% to 10% would take the deal.
“The plaintiffs here are not directly impacted by the directive,” O’Toole wrote in the five-page order. “Instead, they allege that the directive subjects them to upstream effects including a diversion of resources to answer members’ questions about the directive, a potential loss of membership, and possible reputational harm. The unions do not have the required direct stake in the Fork Directive, but are challenging a policy that affects others, specifically executive branch employees. This is not sufficient.”
He said federal employees need to take their workplace complaints to the independent agencies set up to review personnel matters within the government.
White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt said this was “the first of many legal wins for the president.”
“It goes to show that lawfare will not ultimately prevail over the will of 77 million Americans who supported President Trump and his priorities,” she said in a statement.
On Tuesday attorneys for the unions noted the chairperson of the Federal Labor Relations Authority and a member of the Merit Systems Protection Board were fired.
Democracy Forward filed a lawsuit on Feb. 4 on behalf of labor unions representing more than 800,000 civil servants the resignation offer is unlawful, and “arbitrary and capricious in numerous respects.”
American Federation of Government President Everett Kelley, who the largest government employee union among those suing, said after the ruling: “Today’s ruling is a setback in the fight for dignity and fairness for public servants. But it’s not the end of that fight. AFGE’s lawyers are evaluating the decision and assessing next steps. Importantly, this decision did not address the underlying lawfulness of the program.
The union represents 800,000 workers in federal government and the District of Columbia.
“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.”
Unions have cautioned employees not to accept the buyouts.
It’s unclear whether employees will not have to report to work and will be free to seek outside employment as the agency said.
And government is currently only funded through March.
Trump signed an executive order on Tuesday that enforces the work of the Department of Government Efficiency and its leader, Elon Musk, to implement plans for “large scale cuts” to the workforce.
On Tuesday, Trump said: “I got elected on making government better, more efficient and smaller, and that’s what we’re doing, and I think it was a very generous buyout actually,” he said, speaking in the Oval Office.
Workers and allies rallied outside the Capitol on Tuesday.