Washington – The Trump administration announced Tuesday that it offers purchases to all federal employees who choose to leave their work next week, an unprecedented movement to reduce the United States government at a vertiginous speed.
A memorandum of Personnel Management OfficeThe Government Human Resources Agency also said that it would begin to submit all federal employees to “improved suitability and behavior” and warn sinisterly about future reduction. The email sent to millions of employees said that those who leave their positions voluntarily will receive about eight months of salary, but have to choose to do it before February 6.
President Donald Trump has built a political career around promising interrupt WashingtonAnd he promised that his second administration would go much further to shake the traditional political norms than his first. Even so, the repercussions of so many government workers who were invited to abandon their work were difficult to calculate.
Katie Miller, which serves in an advisory board for the Government Efficiency DepartmentA special Trump administration department headed by the CEO of Tesla Elon Musk and in charge of reducing the size of the government, published in X, “this email is sent to more than two million federal employees.”
The federal government used more than 3 million people from November last year, which represented almost 1.9% of the entire civil workforce of the Nation, according to the Pew Research Center. The average possession for a federal employee is almost 12 years, according to a data analysis of the OPM data.
Even a fraction of the workforce that accepts purchases could send shock waves through the economy and trigger generalized interruptions throughout society as a whole, which causes wide implications of scope, and until now unknown, for delivery, the delivery, the punctuality and the effectiveness of federal services throughout the country.
An incalculable number of first -line health workers in the Department of Veterans Affairs, officials who process loans for housing or small businesses, and contractors who help acquire the next generation of military weapons could go to the exits both. It could also mean losing experienced inspectors and scientists who prove the water supply, while interrupting everything from air trips and protection of consumer products.
In response, the president of the Government employee employees union, Everett Kelley, said it should not be considered as voluntary purchases, but to pressure workers not considered faithful to the new administration to vacate their jobs.
“The federal government purge of the career dedicated to federal employees will have vast and involuntary consequences that will cause chaos for Americans who depend on a federal government in operation,” Kelley said in a statement. “Among the burst of anti-trade executive orders and policies, it is clear that the objective of the Trump administration is to turn the federal government into a toxic environment where workers cannot even stay if they want.”
In his email memorandum detailing his plan, OPM lists four directives that says that Trump is forcing the federal workforce in the future, including that most workers return to their full -time offices.
“The substantial majority of federal employees who have been working remotely since Covid must return to their physical offices five days a week,” he says. That echoes Trump, who said federal employees During the weekend: “You have to go to your office and work. Otherwise, you will not have a job. “
The memorandum also says that Trump “will insist on excellence at all levels”, and although some parts of the government’s workforce can increase under their administration, “most federal agencies are likely to be reduced.”
Finally, he says, the “federal workforce must be composed of employees who are reliable, loyal, reliable and fight for excellence in their daily work.”
“Employees will be subject to improved standards of suitability and behavior as we advance,” says the Memo.
The message sent by email includes a “deferred resignation letter” for federal employees to begin to leave their publications.
“If you give up under this program, you will keep all salaries and benefits, regardless of your daily workload and will be exempt from all work requirements applicable until September 30,” he says.
The email even includes instructions on how to accept, indicating: “If you want to give up: select ‘answer’ to this email. You must answer from your government account.” He adds: “Write the word ‘give up’ to the body of this email and press ‘send’.”
Meanwhile, OPM has published a guide for an executive order that Trump signed on the first day of his second term known as “Proadía/Programming Policy.” Replace Program fA Trump order signed at the end of his first term that sought to reclassify thousands of federal employees and turn them into appointed politicians without the same labor security protections.
President Joe Biden He rescinded the order of Annex F of Trump almost immediately after assuming the position in 2021, and under his administration, OPM issued a new rule Last year designed to make it harder to fire many federal employees.
This movement was seen as a safeguard against the use of a new order of Annex F to help carry out the key objectives of Project 2025A sweep plan For a group of Washington conservative experts to rule out large stripes of the Federal Labor Force in favor of more conservative alternatives, while reducing the general government size.
But that has not prevented the Trump administration from moving rapidly to gut the federal workforce and leave employees with little resource to protest shots or reallocations.
The Trump OPM established deadly on Monday so that agencies begin to recommend workers for reclassification. Agency chiefs are told to establish a contact person no later than Wednesday and begin to present intermediate personnel recommendations within 90 days.
“Agencies are encouraged to present recommendations on a continuous basis before this date,” said Charles Ezell, interim director of OPM, in a memorandum.
Perhaps more impressive, Trump’s staff simply eliminated the 2024 regulation of the Biden administration to better protect federal workers. Monday’s memorandum said Trump’s new executive order used the president’s authority “to directly cancel these regulations.”
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The writers of Associated Press Zeke Miller and Lisa Mascaro in Washington and Brian Witte in Annapolis, Maryland, contributed to this report.
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This story has been corrected to change the purchase proposal to eight months of salary, not seven.
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