In a major victory for President Trump’s plan to shrink the size and cost of government, a federal judge in Boston denied a workers union request to block a massive buyout offer for federal workers.
On Wednesday, District Judge George O’Toole denied a request for an injunction and lifted a temporary pause in the Trump administration’s Jan. 28 “Fork in the Road” initiative that offered buyouts to 2 million federal workers.
A group of labor unions for federal employees sought to stop the buyout initiative.
They sued the Office of Personnel Management in U.S. District Court in Massachusetts this month over what union officials called an “arbitrary and capricious” directive offering early retirement plans aimed at dramatically downsizing the federal workforce.
The judge ruled Wednesday that the unions, representing more than 800,000 federal workers, did not have standing in the case, among other flaws in their lawsuit, “and are unable to succeed on the merits” of their claims.
About 65,000 federal employees have accepted the buyout offer, which provides eight months of pay and benefits to those who take it.
“This Boston buyout ruling is the first of many legal wins for the President. The Court dissolved the injunction due to a lack of standing. This goes to show that lawfare will not ultimately prevail over the will of 77 million Americans who supported President Trump and his priorities,” White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt said.
In the ruling, Judge O’Toole lifted the temporary pause on the Trump administration’s Feb. 6 deadline for federal workers to decide whether to accept the buyout.
Ms. Leavitt did not indicate whether the buyout offer deadline will be extended in response to the judge’s ruling.
The American Federation of Government Employees, the American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees, and the National Association of Government Employees filed the lawsuit.
The left-leaning legal advocacy group Democracy Forward also filed on the unions’ side.
“Today’s ruling is a setback in the fight for dignity and fairness for public servants. But it’s not the end of that fight. AFGE’s lawyers are evaluating the decision and assessing next steps,” AFGE National President Everett Kelley said.
Mr. Kelley noted that the decision “did not address the underlying lawfulness of the program.”
“We continue to maintain it is illegal to force American citizens who have dedicated their careers to public service to make a decision, in a few short days, without adequate information, about whether to uproot their families and leave their careers for what amounts to an unfunded IOU from Elon Musk,” he said.
The unions are directing workers not to accept the buyouts. They organized a rally Tuesday near the Capitol to protest the buyout offers, which they say are an attempt to “illegally dismantle critical federal agencies by purging staff and cutting funding.”
The Boston case is one of two major lawsuits Mr. Trump has faced since he began taking significant steps to curb the size and cost of government, which was a main campaign promise.
Earlier this month, a federal judge in Rhode Island ordered the Trump administration to restart billions of dollars in federal spending that the White House had tried to put on hold.
Judge John J. McConnell Jr. had issued an earlier temporary restraining order blocking the funding pause and instructing the government to restart all the spending.
He said Monday it’s clear that the president’s team hasn’t done that.
Prior to the Boston ruling in his favor, Mr. Trump on Wednesday labeled the Rhode Island and Massachusetts judges, both appointed by Democratic presidents, as “activists.”
Mr. Trump told reporters he is working with his Department of Government Efficiency team, led by Elon Musk and a dozen workers whom the president called “12 geniuses,” to cut wasteful federal spending.
The group has clawed back tens of billions of dollars in federal spending in weeks, much of it from U.S. Agency for International Development, a foreign aid program that Mr. Trump dismantled, calling it a slush fund for left-wing causes.
• Susan Ferrechio can be reached at sferrechio@washingtontimes.com.