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  • Founded Date September 14, 1998
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Employment Lawyer Discusses what Trump Offer to Federal Employees to Resign Would Do

MICHEL MARTIN, HOST: Federal employees have until February 6 to choose whether to willingly leave their jobs. The U.S. Office of Personnel Management, OPM, notified employees on Tuesday that if they hand in their resignation by next Thursday – that’s less than a week from now – most will be permitted to depart and be paid till completion of September. Michelle Bercovici is an employment attorney who represents federal workers as a big 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 don’t consider it so much a deal. I believe it’s a demand to resign with an unclear guarantee that, potentially, you could be kept in administrative leave status for as much as eight months – however no guarantees.MARTIN: Some people have actually been utilizing the term buyout to describe what this is since there appears to be the offer of administrative leave for as much as eight months if you take this offer. So is it a buyout?BERCOVICI: I would never describe it as a buyout. I think that’s a really misleading term to use in this circumstance. When you think of a buyout, there’s usually some sort of written contract or a concrete offer to supply an advantage in exchange for waiving specific rights. That is not the case here.MARTIN: If customers ask you for your recommendations, referall.us what are you informing them?BERCOVICI: First thing we inform them is exercise extreme caution. There are no warranties contained in this email. The only thing I can tell you for particular is that if you alter your mind, the agency’s most likely not going to let you withdraw that resignation, and you are essentially quiting control over a lot.MARTIN: Exists some classification of employee who you believe this might benefit? Maybe they’re close to retirement. Is somebody like that might this be an attractive offer?BERCOVICI: Folks near retirement require to be the most careful because leaving earlier than planned can have serious effects, potentially, on their benefits.MARTIN: Let me just play a clip from the White House press secretary, Karoline Leavitt. She told press reporters that this is a bargain for individuals who do not want to return to the workplace. Let me just play it.(SOUNDBITE OF ARCHIVED RECORDING)KAROLINE LEAVITT: This is a suggestion 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 extremely generously using to pay them for eight months.MARTIN: You’re shaking your head no.BERCOVICI: It simply – in a way, it breaks my heart that federal workers are being jerked around like this. It sends out a signal to me that this return-to-office order is 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 like their task. They love the objective of the company. They strive. And today, they’re facing extremely difficult options, specifically if they’re remote. I indicate, it’s really coercive.MARTIN: You say it’s coercive. Because?BERCOVICI: Essentially, if you’re somebody 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 choice than to take this option.MARTIN: Do you anticipate legal obstacles just to the deal itself? And if so, on what grounds?BERCOVICI: This offer, to be honest, is so unprecedented that I think a great deal of us are still attempting to find out what to do with it. I’m not exactly sure if the deal itself might be challengeable. I think the bigger question is the execution of these terms. I’m not familiar with any authority that exists today for OPM to buy agencies to offer this number of individuals administrative leave. So I think it is quite perhaps setting the phase for challenges due to the fact that I feel OPM has vastly exceeded their authority.MARTIN: That is Michelle Bercovici. She is an employment attorney with the Alden Law Group here in Washington, D.C. Thank you so much for joining us.BERCOVICI: Thank you so much for having me here.

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