Trump moves to gut government by offering to buy out 3m federal workers | First Thing
Trump moves to gut government by offering to buy out 3m federal workers | First Thing
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Memo says aim is to retain only those employees who are ‘reliable, loyal, trustworthy’. Plus, 85% of Greenlanders reject US advances. Good morning. The Trump administration has offered buyouts to almost all of the roughly 3 million people who work for the US government if they leave their jobs by 6 February in exchange for seven months’ salary, as the White House attempts to gut the civil service.
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The US Office of Personnel Management (OPM), the government’s human resources agency, sent an email to the entire federal workforce on Tuesday evening with four directives that it says Trump is mandating. They included a full-time return to the office for most employees.
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The email said that the federal workforce would be subjected to “enhanced standards of suitability and conduct”, aiming to retain only employees who were “reliable, loyal, trustworthy”. It warned that most agencies would be downsized. Trump has pledged to radically remake the government, including significantly shrinking the size of the federal workforce and cutting trillions of dollars of spending.
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What are the details? The email had the same subject line – “Fork in the road” – as one sent by Elon Musk to employees at Twitter in 2022 when he bought the social media platform. It asked interested workers to reply with the word “Resign”.
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How did the employees’ union react? The American Federation of Government Employees denounced the offer. It said it was an effort to pressure workers who are not considered loyal to the new administration to leave their jobs – which could cause upheaval in federal programs.
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