[spacemanspiff01]

I like the analogy, additionally, it seems like just 'stopping coming to work' is something that you could be fired for cause for. So if it comes up later that hey, this person has not been working due to a agreement that the government had no right to agree to.

Well we'll be nice and just fire them, won't even ask for salary to be returned.

[protocolture]

They have a lawful direction to stop working and keep getting paid coming from their management.

If they were terminated for following a lawful direction they would have pretty easy recourse.

[staticman2]

It's not a "lawful direction" if the order is illegal.

[protocolture]

You would have to go pretty far to prove to a standard I would accept that "Go work from home, and do nothing, we will keep paying you" is an illegal order.

Firstly: Its telling these people to work from their principle place of work, their home. Something thats been commonplace since covid.

Secondly, "Do Nothing" seems like a very legal thing for these people to be doing.

I suspect that theres not a court in the land that would convict a government employee for doing nothing.

[jameshart]

Very unclear to me that ‘do nothing and get paid for it with congressionally appropriated funds earmarked for doing something’ is legal.

[protocolture]

In the context of general employment, "do nothing", is legal. "Wait" is legal.

Orchestrating a grand plan to waste government money by requesting multiple staff to stop working might be a grey area that the courts will decide on. But no employee would be expected to take it to court to test its validity instead of following a lawful direction.

[staticman2]

Musk is not "requesting multiple staff to stop working" he's asking people to voluntarily resign and promising if they do they get paid until September 30 as if they had not resigned.

It's not clear to me that this is even a "direction" never-mind a "lawful direction".

The way the staff member opts into this arrangement is to write "I resign" in an email. There is no "direction" telling them to do this. It is entirely voluntary behavior on the part of the federal employee.

The issue being discussed I believe was whether they have any legal protections if they don't get paid.

I don't think anyone was claiming they'd go to jail for resigning or anything like that.

Since the promise to pay staff who resigned doesn't necessarily appear to be legal it doesn't appear they necessarily have recourse if not paid given their resignation was voluntary.