(The Center Square) – A federal judge has cleared the way for President Donald Trump to move forward with plans to trim the federal workforce through a deferred resignation program.
Trump’s Office of Personnel Management sent an email Jan. 28 to nearly all federal employees in the executive branch offering them a deferred resignation package – similar to a buyout – called the Fork in the Road directive. It gave federal workers a choice: continue working knowing that Trump plans to restructure the federal workforce and expects everyone back in the office or leave with eight months of pay.
U.S. District Judge George O’Toole Jr. initially paused the buyout program and suspended the Feb. 6 deadline for employees to resign after legal challenges were filed. After reviewing the unions’ claims, he ruled the unions that sued to stop it don’t have standing to do so.
“The plaintiffs here are not directly impacted by the directive. 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 judge wrote. “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.”
That clears the way for Trump to accept deferred resignations from about 75,000 federal employees, according to the White House. The number of federal employees who accepted the offer amounts to less than 5% of the federal workforce. The administration set a higher goal, expecting that 5% to 10% of the federal workforce would take the deal. The administration estimated it could lead to $100 billion in yearly savings, but did not provide information about how it reached that estimate.
OPM stopped accepting deferred resignations at 7 p.m. Wednesday.
The U.S. government employs about 2.4 million federal workers, excluding the military (about 1.3 million active-duty military personnel) and U.S. Postal Service (about 600,000 employees), according to 2024 Pew Research report. That report noted that the federal government employed 1.87% of the entire civilian workforce. That percentage includes postal employees, according to Bureau of Labor Statistics data.
The Trump administration said that even government employees who stay on could lose their jobs as the president reshapes the federal government and its workforce.
A document that went out with the email noted “the federal workforce is expected to undergo significant near-term changes.” The Fork email also noted that “the majority of federal agencies are likely to be downsized through restructurings, realignments, and reductions in force. These actions are likely to include the use of furloughs and the reclassification to at-will status for a substantial number of federal employees.”
