President Donald Trump‘s offer to federal workers to resign and receive months of pay has been extended until Monday night, while the fate of the offer itself awaits a court hearing that afternoon.
The deadline for federal workers to elect to resign but continue working remotely through Sept. 30 was extended until Monday at 11:59 p.m., as the Trump administration aims to cut the size of the federal workforce. White House officials said last week that more than 65,000 workers had taken up the offer. They’d hoped for 100,000-200,000 employees to take the option.
The deadline was originally last week, but a legal challenge from major unions for federal employees, who argued it was “arbitrary, capricious, and not in accordance with law in violation of the Administrative Procedure Act.” A federal judge halted the offer just before the original deadline and ordered a hearing on Monday afternoon to decide the fate.
The three unions aiming to have the offer blocked, the American Federation of Government Employees, the National Association of Government Employees, and the American Federation of State, County, and Municipal Employees, have argued that allowing the offer to go forward could also destabilize several key federal agencies with the significant number of vacancies.
The Office of Personnel Management, which has brought the offer to most federal workers, said that while the deadline was delayed, it was not “blocked or canceled” and that “the government will honor the deferred resignation offer.” In court filings, lawyers for OPM argued that the unions failed to establish standing or prove irreparable harm.
The hearing in a federal courtroom in Massachusetts on Monday at 2 p.m. will decide the future of the offer, which was sent out to federal workers late last month.
“We are grateful to the judge for extending the deadline so more federal workers who refuse to show up to the office can take the Administration up on this very generous, once-in-a-lifetime offer,” White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt told the Washington Examiner on Friday.
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The offer is available to most federal workers and aims to reduce the vast workforce, specifically those who do not want to return to the office. The Trump administration has made a significant push to return workers to the office and to cut waste within the federal bureaucracy.
