White House asks millions of govt workers if they would be so kind as to fork right off

Unions fear federal staff purge and RTO will spark chaos for Americans

More than two million US federal civilian employees have been invited to resign as of September 30, 2025, with incentives promised for those who agree to quit by February 6, 2025.

The sweeping offer comes from the White House’s Office of Personnel Management (OPM) as part of the Trump administration's plan to drastically reduce the size of the federal government.

An email went out to federal workers on Tuesday explaining the offer, which the OPM copied to its website along with an FAQ. The office described the proposal as "a fork in the road."

"During the first week of his administration, President Trump issued a number of directives concerning the federal workforce," the OPM's email stated.

"Among those directives, the President required that employees return to in-person work, restored accountability for employees who have policy-making authority, restored accountability for senior career executives, and reformed the federal hiring process to focus on merit. As a result of the above orders, the reform of the federal workforce will be significant."

The "reformed federal workforce," it's expected, will reflect the four requirements:

• Those allowed to work remotely following the COVID-19 pandemic will be required to return to the office and work there five days a week.
• Performance standards will be updated to reward "excellence" (as opposed to however the current administration defines the prior work of federal workers) - potentially making it easier to fire employees.
• Most agencies will be downsized, except for a select few and the military.
• And "employees will be subject to enhanced standards of suitability and conduct as we move forward," with the implication of focusing more on investigations and disciplinary action.

These requirements do not specify the basis for determining how suitability will be measured, how prior employee management has been deficient, nor how enforcement of current labor-related laws will change.

The OPM, which is essentially Uncle Sam's chief HR dept, has not disclosed a target for the number of workers it hopes will resign; if an unexpectedly large number of workers accepts the offer, the ensuing disruption could be significant.

The deferred resignation offer does not apply to military personnel or those working in immigration enforcement, national security, and postal service positions.

The National Treasury Employees Union has urged its members not to accept the deferred resignation deal. And employment attorney Danny Rosenthal questioned whether the "sloppily drafted" offer is worth the pixels it's displayed with.

"In deciding whether to accept 'deferred resignation,' employees need to ask themselves this question: Do I trust this administration to follow through on the apparent parameters of the program?" Rosenthal wrote in his analysis of the proposed deal.

In addition, the American Federation of Government Employees (AFGE), a union that represents about 800,000 federal and Washington DC government workers, has condemned the plan.

"The number of civil servants hasn't meaningfully changed since 1970, but there are more Americans than ever who rely on government services," said AFGE National President Everett Kelley in a statement.

Purging the government of dedicated career civil servants will have vast, unintended consequences that will cause chaos for Americans

"Purging the federal government of dedicated career civil servants will have vast, unintended consequences that will cause chaos for the Americans who depend on a functioning federal government.

"This offer should not be viewed as voluntary. Between the flurry of anti-worker executive orders and policies, it is clear that the Trump administration's goal is to turn the federal government into a toxic environment where workers cannot stay even if they want to."

When Trump issued the executive orders outlining the plan to purge the federal workforce, the National Federation of Federal Employees, a union representing about 110,000 government employees, was similarly critical.

“These orders are designed to intimidate and attack nonpartisan civil servants under the guise of increasing efficiency; however, these orders will do the exact opposite," said NFFE National President Randy Erwin in a statement. "These actions create new problems, disrupt essential functions, and will ultimately reduce the availability of services to the American people."

Axing federal workers wholesale is not only a pillar of Project 2025, a wish list of changes from influential conservatives in the hope that President Trump will take the hint, it's also in Agenda 47, the commander-in-chief's blueprint for his second term.

It's feared competent civil servants, who are supposed to work primarily for the American people, will be replaced with party loyalists who exclusively serve Republican interests. Trump, on the other hand, sees his efforts as simply booting out under-performing, unnecessary, and corrupt employees.

The OPM's federal government worker purge has the assistance of DOGE, the Department of Government Efficiency, which isn't actually a statutorily defined federal executive department. Rather, it's a temporary organization erected within what was formerly called the United States Digital Service (within the Executive Office of the President, as opposed to defined by Congressional law), which has been renamed the United States DOGE Service (USDS). This is all laid out rather obtusely in President Trump's January 20 executive order that authorizes DOGE.

Elon Musk indicating the ideal height of a super-efficient federal worker, at Trump's 2025 inauguration ... Click for source

Billionaire gadfly Elon Musk, who helped bankroll Trump's reelection campaign and appears to be calling the shots within DOGE at least until an official USDS administrator is named, presided over similar workforce winnowing in the private sector a little over two years ago. Following his purchase of social media site Twitter in October 2022, since rebranded X, he laid off about 6,000 workers, roughly 80 percent of staff at the time.

And at that time, in November 2022, the testy tycoon sent an email to Twitter staff to make his case for a restructured and slimmed-down social network, describing it as "a fork in the road." Sound familiar?

The results of that overhaul speak for themselves: "User growth is stagnant, revenue is unimpressive, and we’re barely breaking even," Musk reportedly told employees last week in an X-wide email.

You'll be glad to know Amanda Scales, who worked for Musk at his machine-learning lab xAI, is now the OPM's chief of staff, and will work alongside others at the top of the agency also linked to the SpaceX boss. ®