My employment lawyer 5th FAQs re terminating federal employees: The RIF “Acknowledgement of Receipt” forms.
Some federal agencies have sent out an “Acknowledgement of Receipt” (the “Acknowledgement”) in the Reduction in Force (RIF) notices, and employees have questions about the implications of signing it.
📒If you haven’t signed it, I wouldn’t do so. If you have already signed it, don’t worry too much.
📒 Not signing the Acknowledgment will not change the fact that you have in fact received the RIF notice, and the Agency can still move forward with the RIF regardless of whether or not you sign the Release.
📒The reason I would not recommend signing it is because it is not a well worded document from a legal perspective. When you sign something, it should be clear to all sides what it means, or it can be open to interpretation and dispute.
📒It’s pretty common for employers to ask you to sign something to acknowledge receipt, which doesn’t mean you agree with the contents, just that you received it. i.e. you may be asked to sign acknowledging that you received your performance review, but signing isn’t acknowledging that everything in the review is correct.
📒This Acknowledgement is worded in a way that it is unclear that you are just acknowledging receiving the documents. It says you “acknowledge the requirements and expectations detailed in the Reduction in Force (RIF) notice received.” But it is unclear what it means to “acknowledge” the “requirements and expectations” or even what the “requirements and expectations” are in this context. It would have been more better for the Agency to give employees a document to sign that was clear about what it means, as opposed to being ambiguous like this. This version is less helpful for both the Agency and employees.
📒So given that the Acknowledgment’s meaning is ambiguous, and whether or not you sign has no bearing on if you get RIF-ed or if you get your RIF severance, or any other terms of the RIF, I would not recommend signing it. If your Agency insists on your signing that you received, sign something that says “I acknowledge that I received a Notice of RIF.” Can include agency, date received, other info stating what you received. Signing something like that is not acknowledging that you agree, or that you are taking on any new requirements and/or expectations.
📒But if you have signed the Acknowledgement, I would not lose sleep. If the Agency later uses it to claim that by signing you agreed to certain terms of the RIF, or waived your rights to challenge it, that will be a difficult legal position for them to take. If that happens, you can contest it. You can contact an employment lawyer for your specific situation.
This was also published on LinkedIn. You can find my prior FAQs here on my LinkedIn page and/or on this Substack. Follow me for more updates. For questions about how this impacts you personally, please reach out to me directly at mshinnar@jgllaw.com