Iran president says Trump aiming to bring country ‘to its knees’

O’Toole did not say when he may rule on the unions’ request to issue a permanent order blocking the buyouts while a lawsuit they filed on Feb. 4 challenging the legality of the job action is pending.
US District Judge George A. O’Toole Jr. said during a hearing in federal court Monday that an emergency order he issued last Thursday, pausing the government’s “deferred resignation” offer, “will continue until I lift it.”
A federal judge in Boston on Monday froze the deadline for federal workers to accept a buyout offer from the Trump administration while he weighs a request by labor unions to block the program.
But the Justice Department, which represents the government in the case, said Trump is following through on his campaign promise to reform the federal workforce to make it more efficient, noting he has already ordered a return to in-person work for all government employees to restore accountability.
A Jan. 28 email titled “Fork in the Road” was sent to more than 2 million federal employees by the Office of Personnel Management offering a “deferred resignation program” under which they could resign now and receive full pay and benefits through September. They were initially given a Feb. 6 deadline to respond.
Advertisement
Employees were warned they may lose their jobs if they don’t resign because of anticipated downsizing and restructuring of the federal workforce.
The email said employees who resign “will retain all pay and benefits regardless of your daily workload and will be exempted from all applicable in-person work requirements until September 30.”
“Confusion has reigned” for workers, said attorney Elena Goldstein, who represents the unions. In court, she described the buyouts as “a program of unprecedented magnitude” that raise serious questions about its legality and would cause irreparable harm.
She said the unions have been unable to adequately advise its members about the offer because the Office of Personnel Management has offered conflicting information and changing guidelines about it.
Justice Department attorney Eric Hamilton argued in court Monday the “deferred resignation” program is “a humane offering” to employees who may have structured their lives around remote work and don’t want to return to the office.
Advertisement
The voluntarily resignation offer is also an option for employees who don’t want to deal with the uncertainty of potentially losing their jobs during restructuring, he said.
Hamilton urged the judge to reject the unions’ request for an order barring the government from offering the buyouts, arguing that it “would be enormously disruptive to the federal government” as it needs to know how many employees plan to voluntarily resign before moving forward with its plan to reorganize the workforce.
As of last week, 40,000 workers had already signed up for the deferred resignation offer, according to White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt.
The unions which filed suit are the American Federation of Government Employees, AFL-CIO (AFGE); AFGE Local 3707, the American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees, and the National Association of Government Employees.
In their suit, the unions accuse the Trump administration of trying “to wipe away longstanding civil service protections and merit system principles mandated by Congress with strokes of a pen.”
The unions questioned the validity of the buyouts. They argue that it’s unclear whether the Office of Personnel Management will be able to continue paying workers for months after they stop working since Congress hasn’t appropriated any funds for it.
On Sunday, Massachusetts Attorney General Andrea Joy Campbell, along with 19 other Democratic attorneys general and Washington D.C. , filed a friend of the court brief — known as an amicus brief — in the case, supporting the unions’ position. .
“Federal workers dedicate their careers to serving the American people and they deserve stability and support — not political games,” Campbell said in a press release announcing the court filing.
However, on Monday, O’Toole ordered that brief stricken from the record, and also denied a request by a coalition of 21 red states, led by Montana, to file a brief in support of the government’s buyout program.
Advertisement
In a docket entry in the case, O’Toole wrote, “While there may be no positive rule forbidding it, in my judgment a trial court generally should not receive nor consider volunteered submissions by non-parties except as may be specifically authorized by statute or other authority.”
Shelley Murphy can be reached at shelley.murphy@globe.com. Follow her @shelleymurph.