White House pushes back on criticism of "buyout" offer

The big picture: Unions, former officials from previous administrations and others have advised workers not to take the deal.

• Critics argue the offer is illegal, there's no real guarantee people will get paid out, and it's something Congress would need to authorize.
• The offer to resign is part of what's seen as a broad purge of the federal workforce, meant to clear the way for more Trump-friendly workers.
• The administration says it's following through on a promise to restructure the federal government.
• "Union leaders and politicians telling federal workers to reject this offer are doing them a serious disservice," said McLaurine Pinover, a spokesperson for the agency.

Where it stands: Senior officials from the Office of Personnel Management (OPM), effectively the federal government's human resource department, disputed the criticisms in a call with Axios Monday afternoon.

• The group also sent out a contract on Monday that agencies can give to federal employees, which is meant to provide some more reassurance.
• The contract says employees will agree to work through Feb. 28 to "ensure a smooth transition" of their duties and responsibilities, and says "employee shall not be expected to work during the deferred resignation period except in rare circumstances."
• The contract says explicitly that workers can take other jobs, and still get paid — and appears to contain a provision where workers waive their right to sue over the offer.

Zoom in: OPM officials insisted their offer was fair, and called out critics.

• "It's very malicious, the way that it's being spun as being some sort of way to trick people, which it isn't," one official said on condition of anonymity. The offer had been thoroughly vetted by lawyers, and was in the works during the transition period before President Trump took office.
• "There was a comprehensive legal analysis done about the labor law implications, the implications of communicating with all employees, the data privacy implications," said the second official. "You can't coerce someone into resigning, which we didn't do, but there's an analysis of that as well."

• They declined to answer questions about Elon Musk's reported involvement in the offer.

As for the criticism that there isn't authorization for the deal from Congress:

• "That's a red herring," one of the officials said. This is an offer for workers to stay on as employees, but effectively take administrative leave; there's no additional salary needed. So they didn't need any Congressional sign-off, this person said.
• "It's a buyout in the sense they don't have to work very much, and they continue to get paid, but there's no additional payout."

The bottom line: The officials pointed out there is a lot of restructuring coming in the federal government; their offer, they said, is a way to avoid the stress that the changes could bring.

• "People voted for government restructuring," one official said. "And that's what's happening. It's not like we're coming up with this on the fly."