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Employment Lawyer Discusses what Trump Offer to Federal Employees to Resign Would Do

MICHEL MARTIN, HOST: Federal employees have till February 6 to choose whether to voluntarily leave their jobs. The U.S. Office of Personnel Management, OPM, notified employees on Tuesday that if they hand in their resignation by next Thursday – that’s less than a week from now – most will be allowed to depart and be paid up until the end of September. Michelle Bercovici is an employment attorney who represents federal staff members as a large part of her practice, so I asked her for her interpretation about what OPM’s postponed resignation program would really mean.MICHELLE BERCOVICI: I in fact don’t consider it so much a deal. I believe it’s a request to resign with a vague guarantee that, possibly, job you might be kept in status for as much as 8 months – but no guarantees.MARTIN: Some individuals have actually been utilizing the term buyout to describe what this is because there seems to be the deal of administrative leave for up to 8 months if you take this deal. So is it a buyout?BERCOVICI: I would absolutely not explain it as a buyout. I believe that’s a really deceptive term to use in this circumstance. When you think about a buyout, there’s typically some sort of written contract or a concrete offer to provide a benefit in exchange for waiving specific rights. That is not the case here.MARTIN: If customers ask you for your guidance, what are you telling them?BERCOVICI: First thing we tell them is workout extreme caution. There are no assurances contained in this email. The only thing I can inform you for specific is that if you change your mind, the agency’s probably not going to let you withdraw that resignation, and you are essentially giving up control over a lot.MARTIN: Is there some classification of worker who you believe this might benefit? Maybe they’re close to retirement. Is somebody like that might this be an appealing offer?BERCOVICI: Folks near retirement require to be the most cautious since leaving earlier than meant can have severe effects, potentially, on their benefits.MARTIN: Let me just play a clip from the White House press secretary, job Karoline Leavitt. She told press reporters that this is an excellent deal for people who do not want to go back to the office. Let me just play it.(SOUNDBITE OF ARCHIVED RECORDING)KAROLINE LEAVITT: This is an idea to federal employees that they have to return in – to work. And if they do not, then they have the option to resign, and this administration is extremely kindly offering to pay them for eight months.MARTIN: You’re shaking your head no.BERCOVICI: It just – in a manner, it breaks my heart that federal workers are being jerked around like this. It sends out a signal to me that this return-to-office order is in bad faith, that it’s designed to get folks who work really hard to resign. I think it’s trying to pull the wool over a lot of individuals’s eyes since there are no guarantees. And these are people who love their job. They like the objective of the firm. They work hard. And right now, they’re dealing with really difficult choices, particularly if they’re remote. I mean, it’s very coercive.MARTIN: You state it’s coercive. Because?BERCOVICI: Essentially, if you’re somebody who resides in Oregon and job has been told to report to D.C. or else we’re going to fire you, they might feel that they have no choice than to take this option.MARTIN: Do you anticipate legal obstacles just to the deal itself? And if so, on what grounds?BERCOVICI: This deal, to be sincere, is so unprecedented that I think a lot of us are still attempting to determine what to do with it. I’m uncertain if the deal itself might be challengeable. I believe the larger question is the execution of these terms. I’m not knowledgeable about any authority that exists right now for OPM to buy firms to offer this variety of people administrative leave. So I think it is quite possibly setting the stage for difficulties because I feel OPM has actually significantly exceeded their authority.MARTIN: That is Michelle Bercovici. She is a work lawyer with the Alden Law Group here in Washington, D.C. Thank you a lot for signing up with us.BERCOVICI: Thank you so much for having me here.

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