Jeffrey (Jeff) H. Ruzal, Member of the Firm in the Employment, Labor & Workforce Management practice, in the firm’s New York office, was quoted in Law360, in “4 Questions About Trump's Federal Worker Resignation Policy,” by Max Kutner. (Read the full version – subscription required.)
Following is an excerpt:
President Donald Trump’s offer of letting federal workers resign with several months of paid administrative leave raises questions about its legality and whether workers will actually get paid, attorneys said. …
Here, Law360 explores four questions that stem from the policy. …
What Are The Details?
Attorneys on both sides said there didn’t appear to be enough details about how this program will actually work. “This is an incredibly unorthodox approach,” said Jeff Ruzal of Epstein Becker & Green, who represents employers … “President Trump is stepping into the shoes as the direct employer of upwards of two million federal workers and saying, ‘Hey, voluntarily resign by, effectively, putting the word resign in a reference line, and we’re going to pay you,'” Ruzal said. “There’s no further specific promise. There’s seemingly no other documentation that spells out the fine print.” …
It can also hurt the government, Ruzal said. “There’s a lot of potential liability that’s out there,” he said. Among those is wage and hour risk, particularly if people still end up having to do some work between now and September, he said. “Then you have a serious problem,” he said. “This voluntary payment for resignation is not payment as wages or payment for work being done.”
