Cnn
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The offer of President Donald Trump to most federal employees to resign now and be paid in September has amazed the workers who received it – angry with some, confusing a lot and raising questions about the question of whether ‘Offer is even legal.
When a member of the American staff of agriculture based in Mississippi received on Tuesday the offer of deferred resignation, they read it, laughing because it was just “absurd”, then removed it.
“I have all my whole life invested in the federal government,” said staff, who also spent time in the army. “I’m not going to throw everything away.”
In the United States, several federal workers who spoke with CNN declared that they were not willing to sacrifice the benefits beyond their salaries-including health and retirement services and the pardon of loans to students – Not to mention the careers. They asked that their names were not used for fear of reprisals.
The unions of federal workers quickly unleashed themselves in the supply of deferred resignation, stressing that it was not a buyout and that the administration may not be able to follow it.
“Employees should not follow the program at its nominal value,” said the American Federation of Government Employees on Wednesday, the largest federal union of federal offer in a FAQ . Communications from the personnel management office are “rigged of inconsistencies and uncertainties. It is also difficult to know whether OPM has the legal power to support the program or its alleged advantages, and the eligibility criteria are vague. »»
The union warned that the offer does not guarantee any guarantee that employees whose resignations are accepted “will receive the advantages that the program claims to offer”. And he noted that the federal government was only funded in mid-March, so that the Trump administration cannot make payment promises beyond that moment until the congress adopts A spending bill.
The counterpoup encouraged the Trump administration to send another email to employees on Friday, this time coming from their individual agencies. He strengthened, in the underlined text, that the offer is “valid, legal and will be honored by” the respective departments. In addition, those who accept the offer “will not be subject to a reduction in force or another premature separation”, it should not work during the period of about eight months (with rare exceptions) and can take A non-governmental job during this period.
Trump’s deputy chief of staff for politics, Stephen Miller, said, without evidence, that “a significant number of federal workers accepted the buyout” during a group with journalists at the White House on Friday .
But the workers interviewed CNN do not jump at the opportunity to jump the ship.
The Mississippi USDA employee, who said that acceptance of the offer was out of the question, was the most offended that the OPM email referred to that federal employees should be “loyal”.
“When I got up my way on the right a long time ago, I swore to defend the Constitution,” they told CNN. “So I am not faithful to anyone. I am faithful to my country.
The OPM email, which contained the “fork in the road” object line, had many similarities with an email that X, then called Twitter, sent to its employees a few days after Elon Musk took over the business. Musk now directs the Trump government ministry, which has been responsible for reducing the federal workforce as one of its mandates.
The offer came while Trump seeks to reshape the federal workforce – including the reduction of its size, the replacement of career workers with people named politicians, wiping certain public service protections, the implementation of diversity efforts and more.
Some 2.4 million people work for the federal government, not to mention the postal workers, who are not eligible for the package. The soldiers are also excluded and those who occupy positions linked to the application of immigration and national security, among others.
Those who qualify must decide by February 6.
An employee of the United States Ministry of Agriculture, who approaches his retirement, said that they will not take Trump on incitement and do not expect anyone at his office in his office in Illinois.
“They try to change everything overnight,” said the employee. “They try to reinvent the government, and I don’t think they can do it.”
“I retire at 60. I am my 25 years. I am acquired. I’m not going anywhere, “they continued.
Trump administration also seeks to repress federal employees working at home or in hybrid roles, rather than their full -time offices.
But a large part of the federal workforce is located outside the national capital, and Trump’s offer has encountered confusion and skepticism in many of these offices. While some workers said that it was not clear from the initial email if they were to continue working in September, a FAQ on the OPM website said employees should not Operating and were encouraged to find jobs in the private sector.
“You are welcome (to) stay at home and relax or go to the destination of your dreams. Whatever you want, ”read the FAQ.
Others did not like the worrying warning in the OPM email if they choose to stay: “We cannot give you full insurance concerning the certainty of your position or your agency. »» They also bristled by the FAQ of the OPM which encourages workers to pass “lower productivity jobs in the public sector to higher productivity jobs in the private sector” to stimulate American prosperity.
An employee of the Labor Department declared to CNN that he had initially considered the offer, but said: “Over time, more skepticism increases”, in part because of their doubts that the Trump administration will follow the Eight months of remuneration offered.
A The worker of the veterans said that the Trump administration’s offer had turned against him.
“Before today, I only heard people who wanted to leave,” said the worker one day after receiving the offer. “Today, people are determined to stay.”
The initial offer to leave the eyebrows raised eyebrows among some who said that the emails they had recently received from the OPM did not seem legitimate. Some thought that the initial test emails sent by OPM last week were phishing scams, which encourages them to ask their managers what to do.
Some federal workers have said that Trump changes would uproot their lives – and said the offer decreases the value of work, which they think is helping the Americans.
An internal worker of the income service told CNN that the offer had made them angry, although some of their colleagues came there.
“Do they think we are stupid enough to do it?” said the staff member, who intends to stay with the federal government until retirement, who is still in years. “They will have to fire me.”
The worker, who lives in the south with his spouse and young child, said that he found it flourishing to help people.
“I really love her, especially when I am on the phone with someone who has his problems settled and (the taxpayer is) having money to meet them so that he was desperately trying to put himself by themselves “said the IRS staff.
Some workers have found the OPM email disturbing. An employee of the Ministry of the Interior – who declared that their division was already in an under -effective and had to hire entrepreneurs, who are more paid – could not sleep on Tuesday evening after receiving the delayed resignation package.
“It is intimidation. It’s harassment, “said the worker, who lives in Oklahoma. “It is a question of questioning all the hard work and the importance of what we do. Being treated like it is not human, and it is not professional. »»
The email of the OPM was written in a manner designed to force federal employees to resign, told CNN Doreen Greenwald, national president of the National Treasury Employey Union, in an interview.
“It was written in a very negative tone, threatening,” she said. “It did not give any clarity on what was offered.”
After the OPM announced the offer, the union sent an urgent opinion to the members “strongly” urging them not to resign. The NTEU wanted to reassure the employees they had in the choice, said Greenwald.
“No answer was provided in this document, and we therefore had to provide this information to our members to protect them,” she told CNN.
In addition, having a mass exodus of federal employees “would be catastrophic for the federal government and the services on which the Americans depend every day,” said Greenwald.
Other unions of federal employees had similar messages for their members, all questioning the legality of the offer.
“Unlike the structured programs that the federal government has offered in the past to reduce the number of federal employees, this maneuver is intended to panic civil servants to accept what seems to be a good deal, but is probably a scam”, Randy Erwin , National President of Wednesday, the National Federation of Federal Employees.
“The offer is a frightening tactic designed to put pressure on federal workers to stop while promising under an illegal and unenforceable agreement to pay them until October.”