Senate Republicans are pursuing a plan through their “big, beautiful bill” that would force new federal employees to pay for traditional job protections, a major reform that unions have decried as “extortion.”
The measure put forth late last week by the Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee mirrors a similar one House Republicans included in their version of the reconciliation bill that passed last month. It would require federal workers to pay thousands of additional dollars into their government retirement plans each year unless they choose to be “at-will” employees who can be fired without cause.
The cost to workers is even steeper in the Senate legislation.
Whereas the House version would require new hires to pay an additional 5% of their salary to avoid being at-will, the Senate version hikes it to a whopping 10%. Even those who forgo civil service protections would still have to chip in another 5% — a measure not included in the House bill.
In other words, a new federal worker on a $50,000 salary would be paying an extra $2,500 into the retirement plan compared to a veteran employee. And if that new worker wanted the same job protections as the veteran, they would have to pay an extra $5,000 instead.
Republicans are still negotiating among themselves over the legislation, which still needs to pass both the House and Senate in identical form before it can become law. But federal unions are alarmed at the possibility of such a massive change undercutting the civil service system ― and how it could turn government employment into a spoils system in which Trump can reward loyalists and expel perceived enemies.
Everett Kelley, president of the American Federation of Government Employees, called the Senate legislation “a big retaliation bill” that seeks to punish unions “for successfully standing up for our members and fighting this administration’s illegal attempts to obliterate our federal agencies.”
“Under this bill, federal employees will see their take-home pay slashed and their fundamental workplace rights obliterated. And the financial penalties will be significantly higher for employees who want to retain their rights,” Kelley said in a statement.
The One Big Beautiful Bill Act is a massive piece of legislation that carries much of President Donald Trump’s domestic agenda, including tax cuts steered disproportionately to the wealthy, spending cuts targeted at programs for low-income Americans, and a boost in funding for Trump’s immigration crackdown. Republicans are working with narrow majorities in both chambers as they hope to get the legislation to Trump’s desk.
Sen. Rand Paul (R-Ky.), who chairs the Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee, said his committee’s portion of the Senate legislation would steer $75 billion to border security. “The proposal also provides over $24 billion in rescissions of wasteful spending and reforms to reduce costs throughout other parts of the government,” he said in a statement.
Unions see both the House and Senate proposals as a way to strip federal workers of their job protections by weaponizing the federal retirement plan.
When employees retire, they receive an annuity based on their length of service through the Federal Employees Retirement System, or FERS. Under the current system, workers contribute a certain percentage of their paycheck — 4.4% for those hired since 2014 — and the federal government pays the rest.
The Senate legislation would push those contributions for new hires up to either 9.4% or 14.4%, a significant chunk of their income.
In their analysis of the House legislation, the Congressional Budget Office estimated that only one-quarter of new hires would pay a 5% surcharge in order to have civil service protections. That means, over time, the federal workforce would transition from one with strong job security to one in which employees could be fired for pretty much any reason — including not being sufficiently loyal to the president.
Daniel Horowitz, AFGE’s legislative director, told HuffPost last month that the proposal was “a huge policy change masquerading as a small budget provision.”
“It’s 150 years of civil service rules that are being thrown out here and nullified,” Horowitz said. “It torches the civil service.”
Higher retirement contributions aren’t the only change federal workers would see in the Senate legislation. It also proposes charging federal employee unions for their use of government equipment and buildings, as well as for the use of “official time.”
Federal union contracts allow union officials who are government employees to devote a certain amount of their time at work to union business, like handling grievances on behalf of workers. Unions say it would be difficult for them to function without this “official time,” since federal workers can’t be required to pay union dues and many choose not to. The union must represent all workers in the bargaining unit, whether they pay dues or not.
Under the Senate proposal, agencies would determine how much unions owe them for the use of resources and official time, and those that don’t pay on time would be decertified.
The Senate plan would also give the White House $100 million to pursue cuts at federal agencies unilaterally. Trump has tried to slash federal agencies without the input of Congress, prompting lawsuits that have tied up the president’s plans. The proposal would give Trump more leeway to downsize agencies and lay off federal workers without being checked by lawmakers or the courts.