Ex-VOA employees challenge last year’s buyout and retirement offers

A group of former U.S. Agency for Global Media employees on Monday asked the Merit Systems Protection Board to toss out their 2025 deals to leave the agency and reinstate their employment, following a federal judge’s decision last month invalidating Kari Lake’s tenure atop the agency.

The four ex-Voice of America workers agreed to leave the agency last year through the Deferred Resignation Program, Voluntary Early Retirement Authority or Voluntary Separation Incentive Payments following the Trump administration’s announcement that it would seek to shutter the agency and lay off all of its employees.

But last month, a federal judge ruled that Lake had been improperly appointed to lead USAGM, a position that requires Senate confirmation, and ordered the agency to reopen and reinstate the hundreds of employees who were laid off last year.

In a complaint filed Monday with the MSPB, the four former employees argued that those who accepted early retirement or buyouts should have the same opportunity to return to work. The workers, who are represented by Gilbert Employment Law, seek class certification to cover all USAGM workers who accepted participated in DRP, VERA or VSIP since Lake took over at the agency on March 5, 2025.

At the MSPB, employees generally cannot challenge voluntary exit agreements, unless there is evidence they acted under duress or that the parties acted based on a misunderstanding of either the law or an underlying fact. The plaintiffs argued in their filing that both factors are present in this case.

“Here, the DRP/VERA/VSIP offers were made approximately two weeks after appellants received [reduction in force] notices and were placed on administrative leave,” the document states. “The agency’s clear intent was to induce employees to accept these offers as an alternative to being separated by the RIF, and all appellants accepted the offers on that basis. Because both parties mistakenly believed the agency could conduct a RIF, the agreements were based upon a material mistake of fact and are voidable.”

In a statement Tuesday, the former employees said that they were effectively coerced into voluntarily leaving through the threat of mass layoffs.

“Many of us made life-altering decisions under intense pressure and severe time constraints,” said Sonya Laurence Green, a former VOA senior editor. “We were led to believe that widespread layoffs were imminent. People had to weigh how they would support their families, maintain health insurance and, in some cases, whether they would be forced to relocate.”