Judge Extends Block on Trump’s Federal Worker Buyout Plan

The White House in Washington on Jan. 31, 2025. Madalina Vasiliu/The Epoch Times

BOSTON—A federal judge in Massachusetts on Feb. 10 extended his temporary pause on President Donald Trump’s federal worker buyout program.

U.S. District Judge George O’Toole Jr.’s decision was made after his pause last week of a Feb. 6 deadline for employees to accept the Trump administration’s Fork in the Road offer. The buyout offer entailed a deferred resignation whereby employees would continue receiving pay and benefits for eight months.

Approximately 65,000 federal employees have accepted the offer, according to the White House.

“The Court orders that the current stay of the February 6, 2025, deadline to remain in effect until further order of the Court,” a note on the docket stated.

The ruling was made after a lawsuit from unions alleging that the Office of Personnel Management had violated the Administrative Procedure Act and Anti-Deficiency Act.

The unions then asked the court to clarify that the administration must notify employees that the Fork in the Road deadline was stayed.

“Otherwise, some members of the federal workforce might not receive notice of the extended stay of the deadline,” Elena Goldstein, an attorney with Democracy Forward who previously worked as deputy solicitor of labor under President Joe Biden, said in a filing.

During a hearing on Feb. 10, Goldstein told O’Toole that the buyout was a “program of unprecedented magnitude” and that “confusion has reigned” for career civil servants following the unveiling of the initiative.

She alleged that the order was arbitrary, stating that the administration had issued a broad offer without consideration for which positions were needed within the federal government. The offer to pay was unlawful, she added, because it committed funds not appropriated by Congress.

DOJ attorney Eric Hamilton defended the program as offering federal employees an alternative if they had structured their lives around remote work. Trump had ordered agency and department heads to “take all necessary steps to terminate remote work arrangements.”

Hamilton told O’Toole that the plaintiffs lacked standing and were requesting relief that would exacerbate the purported harms that the plaintiffs alleged the program created. He added that the plaintiffs were asking for an extension of the deadline for a program they would ultimately seek to end.

The hearing occurred amid another case in Washington seeking to prevent the Department of Government Efficiency from accessing the Department of Labor’s information systems.

Both cases involved the American Federation of Government Employees and American Federation of State, County, and Municipal Employees—both of which are part of the national trade union center AFL-CIO (American Federation of Labor and Congress of Industrial Organizations). Hamilton pointed to an order from U.S. District Judge John Bates refusing to grant a restraining order because the plaintiffs failed to establish standing.

Goldstein countered that Bates’s order didn’t bear on her case and that her clients had established standing. She said the unions had a duty to provide advice to their members but encountered difficulty given the nature of guidance that came from Office of Personnel Management.