With the Thursday deadline rapidly approaching, only around 20,000 federal employees have accepted the Trump administration's buyout offer, Axios reports, citing a senior administration official. That works out to a little under 1% of the federal workforce, far below the administration's target of cutting the workforce by 5% to 10%. Last week, the Office of Personnel Management told federal employees that they would be paid through Sept. 30, including benefits, if they accepted the deferred resignation deal by Feb. 6.
The Washington Post reports that the federal personnel office sent an email to many agencies Tuesday advising that there would likely be layoffs after the deadline passed. It was followed by an email to the entire workforce reminding them of the deadline.
- The American Federation of Government Employees, the largest federal government employee union, is suing to block the buyout, the Hill reports. The lawsuit calls the offer "an arbitrary, unlawful, short-fused ultimatum." It notes that the OPM made an offer it doesn't have the funds to back.
- Unions and Democratic lawmakers have urged federal workers to reject the offer, the Post reports. Democratic Sen. Tim Kaine said the "president has no authority to make that offer" and warned that if workers "accept that offer and resign, he'll stiff you."
- Axios notes that the attrition rate in the federal workforce is 6% a year, meaning some workers who accepted the buyout offer may have been planning to leave anyway,
(More
federal employees stories.)
,
uBlock 
,
and
Ghostery 
)
