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Employment Lawyer Discusses what Trump Offer to Federal Employees to Resign Would Do
MICHEL MARTIN, HOST: have till February 6 to choose whether to willingly leave their tasks. The U.S. Office of Personnel Management, OPM, informed employees on Tuesday that if they hand in their resignation by next Thursday – that’s less than a week from now – most will be enabled to take leave and be paid until the end of September. Michelle Bercovici is an employment attorney who represents federal workers as a large part of her practice, so I asked her for her interpretation about what OPM’s postponed resignation program would in fact mean.MICHELLE BERCOVICI: I in fact do not consider it so much a deal. I think it’s a demand to resign with an unclear guarantee that, potentially, job you might be kept in administrative leave status for up to eight months – however no guarantees.MARTIN: Some people have actually been using the term buyout to describe what this is due to the fact that there appears to be the deal of administrative leave for approximately eight months if you take this offer. So is it a buyout?BERCOVICI: I would definitely not describe it as a buyout. I think that’s a really misleading term to use in this circumstance.
When you think about a buyout, there’s normally some sort of written contract or a concrete deal to supply an advantage in exchange for waiving certain rights. That is not the case here.MARTIN: If customers ask you for your recommendations, job what are you telling them?BERCOVICI: First thing we tell them is exercise extreme care. There are no guarantees included in this e-mail. The only thing I can tell you for specific is that if you alter your mind, the agency’s probably not going to let you withdraw that resignation, and you are basically offering up control over a lot.MARTIN: Exists some classification of staff member who you think this might benefit? Maybe they’re close to retirement. Is someone like that may this be an attractive offer?BERCOVICI: Folks near retirement require to be the most cautious since leaving earlier than meant can have serious effects, potentially, on their benefits.MARTIN: Let me simply play a clip from the White House press secretary, Karoline Leavitt. She informed reporters that this is a great deal for people who don’t wish to go back to the office. Let me simply play it.(SOUNDBITE OF ARCHIVED RECORDING)KAROLINE LEAVITT: This is an idea to federal workers that they have to return in – to work. And if they do not, then they have the choice to resign, and this administration is really kindly using to pay them for eight months.MARTIN: You’re shaking your head no.BERCOVICI: It just – in such a way, job it breaks my heart that federal employees are being jerked around like this. It sends out a signal to me that this return-to-office order remains in bad faith, that it’s developed to get folks who work really hard to resign. I believe it’s trying to pull the wool over a lot of people’s eyes because there are no assurances.
And these are people who enjoy their job. They love the objective of the agency. They strive. And today, they’re facing really difficult choices, specifically if they’re remote. I indicate, it’s really coercive.MARTIN: You state it’s coercive. Because?BERCOVICI: Essentially, if you’re someone who lives in Oregon and has been informed to report to D.C.
or else we’re going to fire you, they might feel that they have no option than to take this option.MARTIN: Do you expect legal obstacles simply to the offer itself? And if so, on what grounds?BERCOVICI: This deal, to be honest, is so unprecedented that I believe a lot of us are still trying to figure out what to do with it. I’m uncertain if the offer itself might be challengeable. I think the bigger question is the execution of these terms. I’m not mindful of any authority that exists right now for OPM to purchase agencies to give this variety of individuals administrative leave. So I believe it is extremely much perhaps setting the stage for obstacles because I feel OPM has actually vastly 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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