A recent court case has emerged regarding the Office of Personnel Management (OPM) email blast that requested federal workers to detail their accomplishments. The case involves a group of unions contesting mass firings and arguing that the demand for employees to respond is unlawful.
The unions initially filed a lawsuit in a California federal court to prevent the Trump administration from terminating federal employees. However, they updated their complaint after an email was sent out to federal workers asking them to submit five accomplishments from the previous week by a specified deadline.
The email, which set the deadline for Monday at midnight, also mentioned consequences for those who failed to respond, including being considered as having resigned, as indicated by Elon Musk on social media.
The unions' argument is based on the assertion that the OPM email was not pre-announced in the Federal Register as a formal policy or program, thus violating federal regulations.
According to the unions, prior to February 22, 2025, federal employees were not obligated to report their work to OPM. They claim that historically, there has never been a requirement for all federal workers to submit reports to OPM under any rule, regulation, policy, or program.
Seeking urgent intervention, the unions have brought the case before federal Judge William Alsup in the Northern District of California. However, similar lawsuits seeking emergency relief from judges have typically not resulted in indefinite intervention.
Another legal effort in a separate federal court in Washington, DC, aimed to restrict Musk's use of the email address sources. This case revolved around privacy concerns related to the collection of government emails and data through the email address. Eventually, OPM provided a privacy impact assessment to the court regarding the use of the email address.
