My employment lawyer 4th FAQs re terminating federal employees: The “Authorization for Release of Information” (the “Release”) being sent by agencies as part of a RIF Notice.
Many federal agencies have sent out an “Authorization for Release of Information” (the “Release”) in the Reduction in Force (RIF) notices. You can sign it if you want, but you should understand the risks, and that you are not required to do so. A copy of the Release is below.
📒 You are not required to sign this. If you do not sign it, the government cannot withhold your RIF severance pay, because that is pay you are legally entitled to, and the government can’t add this Release as a prerequisite. If the government doesn’t pay you, you have legal recourse.
📒 Your supervisor and/or other people you worked with can still provide you with a reference regardless of whether or not you sign the Release.
📒 This is not a standard document or a normal to sign an agreement that your former employer (government or private) can broadly release all of this information to so many different entities.
📒 The Release goes well beyond a standard employment verification, which would cover employment dates, job title, and potentially eligibility for rehire. There are reasons for this. For example, you may not want your prior salary to influence your salary offer in a new job, or you may not wish to explain to a potential employer about an illness or family matter that impacted your attendance.
📒 It is unclear what the Release considers to be “other related matters,” but that is a very broad thing to risk agreeing to release without knowing what this covers.
📒It is not normal to waive your legal rights regarding damages you suffer from the Release. Those rights can be important. For example, if the government incorrectly tells a potential employer that you had terrible performance reviews, were fired for misconduct, or that you held an entirely different job/rank than the one on your resume, by signing the Release you have waived your right to any legal recourse.
📒 The Release asks for your name and last four digits of your SSN, but no other identifying information, such as what Agency you worked for, or your contact information, which makes it prone to error. Being asked to email it to a general email creates privacy risks. And if there is a mistake and/or privacy breach, you have waived your right to do anything about it (see above).
📒 The Release claims this is supported by an Executive Order (EO), but the EO it cites is a 1943 EO from FDR re starting to use SSNs for federal employees, when SSNs themselves were less than a decade old, and not all Americans had one yet. It is not standard to track federal employees by SSN like this.
This is also posted on my LinkedIn page. Subscribe to this Substack and/or follow me on LinkedIn for more updates. For questions about how this impacts you personally, please reach out to me directly at mshinnar@jgllaw.com or contact an employment lawyer of your choosing.
