By David Shepardson and Karen Freifeld
WASHINGTON (Reuters) -Unions representing U.S. government employees filed a lawsuit on Tuesday to block the Trump administration’s plan to offer buyouts to federal workers, even as a U.S. official told Reuters that more than 20,000 employees are planning on quitting.
The American Federation of Government Employees and two other unions claim the buyout offer is “arbitrary and capricious” and violates federal law, according to the complaint.
The White House last week offered 2 million civilian full-time federal workers an opportunity to stop working this week and receive pay and benefits through Sept. 30 as President Donald Trump seeks to slash the size of the government.
The deadline to accept the offer is Thursday.
The unions allege the administration cannot guarantee the plan will be funded and has failed to consider the consequences of mass resignations, including how it might affect the government’s ability to function.
The White House Office of Personnel Management defended the legality of the program in a memo to agencies on Tuesday.
The program has undergone extensive legal review and is completely voluntary, the U.S. official said, adding it was an effort to assist employees financially as federal agencies scale down their workforce.
Trump has embarked on a massive makeover of the U.S. government, firing and sidelining hundreds of civil servants in his first steps toward downsizing the bureaucracy and installing more loyalists.
The number of deferred resignations is rapidly growing, the U.S. official said, and the largest spike is expected to come 24 to 48 hours before Thursday’s deadline.
The White House has said it will exempt public safety employees, including air traffic controllers, from its “deferred resignation program.”
The administration urged government workers last week to quit their “lower productivity jobs” and seek work in the private sector, and to take a vacation to a “dream destination,” sparking outrage among civil servants.
The program would allow them to remain on the payroll through Sept. 30 but without having to work in person and possibly having their duties reduced or eliminated in the meantime, according to a memo sent to workers.
(Reporting by Karen Freifeld, David Shepardson and Daniel Weissner; Writing by James Oliphant; Editing by Cynthia Osterman, Sandra Maler and Lisa Shumaker)
