Labor unions representing federal workers updated their lawsuit against the Trump administration over mass firings to include the email sent over the weekend telling workers to list their achievements or face termination.
The email, sent Saturday by the Office of Personnel Management to the entire executive branch, was titled “What did you do last week” and asked federal employees to respond with five bullet points listing what they accomplished in the last week. Elon Musk, who has been overseeing cuts to the federal workforce at the Department of Government Efficiency, said in a post on X that “failure to respond will be taken as a resignation.” The deadline established in the email to respond is 11:59 p.m. on Monday.
The updated lawsuit, filed in the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of California on Sunday, says the actions are unprecedented and argued procedural requirements have not been complied with.
“Prior to February 22, 2025, no notice was published, in the Federal Register or anywhere else, regarding any OPM program, rule, policy, or regulation requiring all federal employees to provide a report regarding their work to OPM,” the lawsuit said.
The amended lawsuit continued by saying there was also no regulation that “employees who failed to respond to an email from [email protected] requesting such a report would be considered to have submitted a ‘resignation’ of federal employment.”
The unions are asking for a temporary restraining order to halt the mass firings, including of probationary employees who were fired earlier this month.
The email sent over the weekend has garnered a mixed reaction from executive agencies, with some, including those at the State Department, FBI, and Department of Defense, telling their employees not to respond to the blanket email.
FEDERAL WORKERS WHO DON’T EMAIL WEEKLY ACHIEVEMENTS WILL LOSE THEIR JOB: MUSK
Other executive branch agencies, including NASA and the Department of Transportation, told their employees to comply with the email.
The lawsuit is the latest by federal workers and their labor unions aimed at curbing the quick-moving DOGE efforts to cut the size and spending of the federal government.