As Philly federal workers face a deadline to share their accomplishments, the mandate has created added uncertainty
Some federal workers were advised to check whether their agency head wants them to respond.
“What did you do last week?”
Federal employees faced the question in an email Saturday from the U.S. government’s human resources agency, the Office of Personnel Management. The email asked them to email OPM a list of their accomplishments from the past week by 11:59 p.m. Monday.
Elon Musk said in a post on X that not responding to the OPM email would be considered a resignation. But that information is not in the OPM email workers received, which asks workers to share what they accomplished in the previous week but not to share any classified information, links, or attachments.
On Monday, conflicting information persisted as President Donald Trump repeated the directive that those who do not respond could be fired, while the OPM noted responding was voluntary, according to the New York Times.
The email again sowed uncertainty among federal workers in the region and sent Philadelphia-area union representatives scrambling to provide guidance for their members.
On his first day in office, Trump signed executive orders mandating an end to remote work for federal employees, a hiring freeze, and an end to DEI work. Since then, federal workers also have received an offer to resign with eight months’ pay from OPM, and this month, layoffs have focused on federal employees on probationary status.
“First we were trying to establish whether it was a real email or not, or whether it was phishing or spam,” said Philip Glover, national vice president for the American Federation of Government Employees (AFGE) District 3.
AFGE District 3, which represents around 9,400 federal workers in and near Philadelphia, among some 31,000 workers in Pennsylvania and Delaware, is advising members to check in with their agency before responding to OPM’s email.
If their agency wants them to respond, the union recommends that workers share their list of accomplishments with their supervisors before sending it to OPM to ensure the information can be shared externally. The union also provided members with an email template for seeking guidance from their supervisors.
“We definitely don’t wanna tell them to not comply if their management team has told them to respond,” Glover said.
Some federal workers might not see the OPM email before the Monday night deadline, given their scheduled working hours, Glover said. Many federal employees work 10-hour days and usually have Monday or Friday off, he added.
“There’s a fear factor that comes with this,” said Brad Starnes, who represents EPA workers in Pennsylvania and Delaware as president of AFGE Local 3631. Starnes characterized the missive as “harassment,” adding that it impacts worker morale.
Starnes said the EPA didn’t provide guidance on how workers should respond to the email until around noon Monday. Half a day before the deadline, EPA sent a mass email telling workers to comply with the order.
Alex Jay Berman, a union representative for IRS employees in Philadelphia, noted “confusion” and “disarray” among the members he represents.
“If an employee lets something slip because they’re being told on such short notice, with such little guidance, without any kind of guardrails ... I would really want to make sure that employees are not penalized,” said Berman, executive vice president of National Treasury Employees Union Chapter 71, which represents IRS employees in Philadelphia.
Asking workers to submit what they have been doing in the past week is not an attempt to better understand their work or increase accountability, said Berman, calling the demand “unlawful and unrealistic.”
“It’s just another step in the harassment, demonization, and punishing of these fine workers who have given their lives over to serving the country,” he said.
Some agencies have pushed back against the ask at a national level. The FBI and the Departments of Defense, State, Energy, Health and Human Services, and Homeland Security, have instructed workers not to comply with the email, according to the New York Times.