Trump supporters walk near the U.S. Capitol building as the sun sets the day U.S. President Elect Donald Trump was declared the winner of the presidential election in Washington, U.S., November 6, 2024.
Leah Millis | Reuters
A federal judge in Boston paused the Thursday night deadline for federal employees to accept the Trump administration’s offer of buyouts.
Judge George O’Toole Jr., during a brief hearing Thursday afternoon, said his injunction suspending the deadline would continue until at least a hearing Monday, where he will listen to arguments on the merits of a lawsuit by employee unions challenging the legality of the buyout.
O’Toole’s order Thursday came as more than 60,000 people — about 3% of the federal workforce — have accepted the offer.
The judge said federal agencies must notify employees who received the buyout offer that the program has been enjoined until Monday.
The Trump administration earlier Thursday in a mass email to federal employees said that the deadline for accepting the buyout offer would not be extended beyond 11:59 p.m. ET.
The offer, laid out in the so-called “Fork Directive,” purports to allow employees to submit a deferred resignation, in which they will no longer have to work but will be paid with benefits until the end of September.
A group of unions representing federal workers on Tuesday sued the federal Office of Personnel Management over the program.
The lawsuit says “basic information is absent” from the offer, including whether OPM “can (or will) honor the financial commitment for agencies across government when Congress has appropriated no funds for this purpose, and the statutory basis and appropriation for this promise remain unclear.”
The offer is “also contrary to the law,” the suit alleges.
“To leverage employees into accepting the offer and resigning, the Fork Directive threatens employees with eventual job loss in the event that they refuse to resign,” the suit says.
The plaintiffs asked O’Toole to declare that the offer “as issued” is not legal, and remand the directive back to OPM “to provide a reasoned basis for the Directive and extend the deadline accordingly, and until such time as Defendants provide an adequate justification for the Directive.”
This is developing news. Check back for updates.
