Friday, the staff of what was previously the digital service of the United States and is now part of the DOGE initiative of Elon Musk met Stephanie Holmes, who identified as part of the DOGE team and as new staff representative of staff.
Throughout the meeting, which started at noon, dozens of USDS employees launched questions in Holmes linked to last week “Fork on the road” Email offering federal workers “deferred resignations”, according to documents detailing the meeting obtained by Wired and corroborated by present sources. The questions covered problems ranging from the future of staff projects to find out if the return to the office would apply to fully distant workers, as well as the exact nature of the supply that the federal government made.
Holmes – Who has not immediately answered a request for comments – could fully answer some of the questions. She said, when asked, that the offer was “legal” and said later: “We believe that the offer is legal” and could provide little additional advice beyond. At one point, it was asked if there would be a more formal way to accept the buyout than to respond to an email with the word “resign” in the object line. An employee expressed his concerns that external actors can send e-mails to resign on behalf of staff members by usurping their email addresses.
“I suppose that, if people decide to undergo deferred resignation, there is a kind of real agreement that we sign,” said an employee. “Can we get a copy of this in advance to preview?” Can we get a copy of the agreement if there is an agreement? »»
“I don’t know,” said Holmes. “But I will come back to this.”
The confusion comes as the deadline of February 6 is looming so that federal workers accept the agreement. In the email – which was very similar to a musk sent Twitter employees in 2022 – the sender, identified as the Personnel Management Office (OPM), suggests that workers who choose not to resign could still lose their jobs later. Holmes were asked if she could engage in a specific period to provide additional details in the delayed resignation transactions.
“No,” said Holmes. “You know, I think the information you are going to have on this subject is available at the moment, and again, you will just have to make a personal decision -based decision that is available to you at the moment.”
The same employee replied, saying: “I apologize for interjection, but there is a variety of things that this room has mentioned that are contradictory or difficult to understand … I just wonder why you cannot commit to providing these details right away. “
“Yes, I appreciate your question and I do not want to be repetitive or seems to be argumentative in any way, but again, I encourage you not to lose sight of here,” said Holmes . “The advantages of accepting the deferred resignation is that you will be assured of not being subject to a reduction in force and that you are exempt from the return to the mandate of the office. I therefore encourage you to focus on the generous aspects of the offer. »»
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During his first day in power, President Donald Trump signed an executive decree establishing the Ministry of Effectiveness of the Government, or DOGE, by reorganizing American digital services, an existing entity hosted within the executive office of the president, in As long as Doge Service. Trump named Elon Musk as a Dogee chief, who would take great difficulty in reducing spending between government agencies. From publication, Doge faces at least three prosecution contesting his designation of a federal agency.
While Musk installed lieutenants at its higher levels and now uses it as a lever to check the federal government, before the recent decree, the American digital service was a relatively small agency with around 200 employees. His mandate was to help disentangle dysfunctional technology through the government, serving which he had the capacity to enter government agencies and access their software and technical systems.
