By Alexandra Alper and Tim Reid
WASHINGTON (Reuters) – The U.S. government’s human resources agency has told at least two dozen employees they have just nine days to decide whether to relocate to Washington, a move labor unions and governance experts say is another ploy by the Trump administration to force federal workers to quit.
The Office of Personnel Management sent an email on Wednesday to remote workers, some of whom live thousands of miles from Washington, telling them they are being relocated to the U.S. capital and have until March 7 to decide whether to accept the move, according to two people familiar with the directive and copies of the email seen by Reuters.
The memo tells the OPM employees that if they decline to move to Washington their options for “continued employment with this agency may be limited, and the Agency may pursue an adverse action against you.” It notes they may be eligible for severance pay.
While President Donald Trump and his cost-cutting czar Elon Musk, who heads up the so-called Department of Government Efficiency, have made clear they want to relocate Washington-based federal workers to other parts of the country, this appears to be the first time they are demanding remote employees move to the capital.
At least two of the workers who received the email told Reuters they were already considering leaving OPM. A third source said at least 200 people had received the memo.
OPM, DOGE and the White House did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
Nick Bednar, a governance expert at the University of Minnesota Law School, said government agencies have the right to relocate workers and fire them if they refuse to move, but the short notice given to the OPM employees is “abnormal.”
“Giving them this short relocation notice is clearly an effort to get them to quit, to force them from their position. It’s another way to cut the size of government.”
The National Federation of Federal Employees, a union which represents 110,000 government workers, said this was the first time it was aware of that the Trump administration had told people to relocate to Washington.
“It’s another attack on the civil service and to force people to quit,” said Steve Lenkart, executive director of the union.
The OPM ultimatum is striking because on the same day it was sent to remote employees, Trump ordered government agencies to submit plans by April 14 to relocate offices out of the Washington area “to less-costly parts of the country.”
New FBI director Kash Patel has already ordered about 1,500 employees out of the Washington area to field offices around the country, including roughly 500 to Alabama.
Trump and Musk are undertaking a culling of the federal workforce, which they view as bloated and corrupt. While there is bipartisan agreement on the need to reform the civil service, unions and federal workers have complained about Musk’s blunt-force approach.
About 100,000 workers out of the 2.3 million-strong federal civilian workforce have already been fired or taken buyouts.
Trump this week ordered government agencies to undertake more large-scale layoffs, and a new Trump administration memo instructed agencies to submit plans by March 13 for a “significant reduction” in staffing.
(Reporting by Alexandra Alper and Tim Reid; editing by Ross Colvin and Leslie Adler)
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