CNN — A federal judge paused Thursday’s deadline for federal employees to accept the Trump administration’s deferred resignation offer while more proceedings on the program’s legality play out.
The government will send a notice to the employees informing them that Thursday’s deadline is on hold.
Before the judge’s ruling, eligible federal workers had until 11:59 p.m. ET on Thursday to decide whether to take the Trump administration’s deferred resignation offer, which will generally allow them to leave their jobs but be paid through the end of September.
The pause stems from a lawsuit that the American Federation of Government Employees and several other unions filed in US District Court in Massachusetts on Tuesday seeking a temporary restraining order to halt the February 6 deadline. The unions also want to “require the government to articulate a policy that is lawful, rather than an arbitrary, unlawful, short-fused ultimatum which workers may not be able to enforce.”
US District Judge George O’Toole, an appointee of President Bill Clinton who sits in Boston, said in the brief hearing that he was halting the government from taking steps to implement the plan as he receives more briefings on whether it should be blocked. The next hearing is scheduled for Monday afternoon.
Federal unions have strongly urged members not to accept the package, questioning its legality and the ability of the Trump administration to follow through on its promises.
At least 50,000 employees have already accepted the package, an administration official told CNN Thursday.
Supervisors and leaders of at least two federal agencies have been meeting with their staffers, reminding them about the offer, answering questions and, in some cases, stopping just short of urging workers to take it.
The offer is a sweeping effort by the administration to shrink the size of the federal workforce and presents many employees with a tough decision about their careers and futures.
While an Office of Personnel Management spokesperson described the offer as “a rare, generous opportunity,” it also contains a warning: Those who don’t opt in are at risk of losing their jobs. The administration is planning widespread layoffs soon, two officials have told CNN.
The 50,000 figure represents about 2.5% of the roughly 2 million federal employees who received the incentive. The White House has said its target is for between 5% and 10% of employees to resign.
The administration had expected a big spike in workers taking the package in the final 24 to 48 hours before the deadline, an OPM spokesperson said. Employees have communicated their acceptances of the offer by responding to OPM’s email outlining the initiative and through direct conversations with their agency managers.
Certain federal workers — including military personnel, those in immigration enforcement, certain national security staffers and National Transportation Safety Board employees — are not eligible. But Central Intelligence Agency staffers are.
OPM is also sweetening the pot for older federal workers. It is offering an early retirement incentive — known as Voluntary Early Retirement Authority, or VERA — to those who meet the eligibility criteria and who opt in to the deferred resignation program, a source familiar with the offer told CNN on Tuesday. Employees must be at least 50 years old with at least 20 years of service or be any age with at least 25 years of service. They must request the early retirement incentive.
The deferred resignation offer was sent to federal employees on January 28 through the administration’s new mass email system. The subject line, “Fork in the Road,” had many similarities to an email that X, then called Twitter, sent to its employees days after Elon Musk took over the company. Musk now leads Trump’s Department of Government Efficiency, which has been tasked with shrinking the federal workforce as one of its mandates.
The email sparked confusion, concern and consternation among many of the recipients. An FAQ posted on OPM’s website, as well as a subsequent email to workers, sought to clarify that employees who take the offer will not be required to continue working, with rare exceptions, that they will receive full pay even though the federal government is currently only funded through mid-March and that the deferred resignation incentive is valid and legal.
In a follow-up OPM memo sent to agency leaders on Tuesday, the office specified that separation agreements between agencies and employees are legally binding. Were the administration to backtrack on its commitments, “an employee would be entitled to request a rescission of his or her resignation,” it said.
However, a sample deferred resignation agreement that’s circulating among some workers states that only an agency head has the discretion to rescind the agreement and that decision is not subject to review in any forum. Also, an employee “forever waives, and will not pursue through any judicial, administrative, or other process, any action” related to the offer.
The OPM memo also sought to clarify some concerns that workers have raised since the initial offer was sent. It specified that the package does not require congressional approval and workers who opt in will receive their full pay once Congress appropriates funding for the rest of the fiscal year.
But the memo also backtracked a bit from OPM’s FAQ on whether employees would have to work after accepting the incentive. The FAQ said they would not, but the memo said the decision to grant administrative leave would largely be up to each agency — though the expectation is that most employees will be placed on leave for the bulk of the deferred resignation period.
Also, employees who want to take a second job during that period would have to comply with executive branch and agency ethics standards, which limit federal staffers from engaging in outside employment that conflicts with their official government duties. However, the memo noted that any conflicts should be minimized for workers whose duties are curtailed.
Already, some Internal Revenue Service staffers who accepted the offer are being told they have to work through May 15 for the tax filing season, the National Treasury Employees Union said Thursday.
“Not only is this a clear case of bait-and-switch — they were originally told they would be paid to not work through Sept. 30 — but it proves that the terms of OPM’s so-called offer are unreliable and cannot be trusted,” Doreen Greenwald, the union’s national president, said in a statement.
“By requiring IRS employees to stay on the job longer than promised, the administration is proving what NTEU has been saying all along: IRS employees are essential and without them, the jobs that the American people depend upon will not get done,” she continued.
Overhauling the federal government
The package is one of several efforts the Trump administration is undertaking to reshape the federal workforce — including reducing its size, replacing career workers with political appointees, wiping away some civil service protections, ending diversity efforts and more.
Federal employee unions have blasted the Trump administration, saying it is looking to hollow out the civil service and replace career workers with political loyalists. They have also argued that the drive to reduce the federal workforce will hurt Americans.
“Make no mistake about it: if the assault that the Trump administration initiated last month continues unchallenged, every member of Congress will soon hear from angry or confused constituents about why their VA claims have not been processed or why their Social Security retirement benefits have not been delivered,” AFGE National President Everett Kelley said in a statement submitted for the record for the House Oversight and Accountability Committee hearing on Wednesday entitled, “Rightsizing Government.”
OPM spokesperson McLaurine Pinover pushed back on the unions’ negative characterization of the offer and claimed union leaders are misguiding federal workers.
“Union leaders and politicians telling federal workers to reject this offer are doing them a serious disservice. This is a rare, generous opportunity — one that was thoroughly vetted and intentionally designed to support employees through restructuring,” Pinover said in a statement Tuesday.
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