Zach D Roberts/NurPhoto via AP
The American Federation of Government Employees union, representing members of the TSA, holds a picket outside Norfolk International Airport in Norfolk, Virginia, March 25, 2025, to protest anti-union actions by the Trump administration.
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Deep in the Republicans’ behemoth spending bill is a provision that would coerce federal workers to give up their employment protections, an escalation of the Trump administration’s wide-ranging attack on the civil service.
If passed with the House provision intact, the One Big Beautiful Bill Act would require all federal workers hired after the effective date to elect to become at-will employees or functionally lose a chunk of their paycheck. If they choose the at-will employee option, the bill says, they “may be subject to an adverse action up to and including removal, without notice or right to appeal, by the head of the agency at which the individual is employed for good cause, bad cause, or no cause at all.”
That would strip protections most federal employees enjoy, particularly from those operating under a labor bargaining contract.
Any employee hired after the bill goes into effect who does not give up their employee protections will see their mandatory retirement contributions rise precipitously—which amounts to taking money out of their paychecks. Not all federal workers will be required to make this decision, which primarily affects those in the competitive service. Some workers who focus on confidential issues or policies are exempted from the competitive service and also from this provision.
The provision involves workers’ retirement contributions. Any civilian federal employee hired after 2013 is required to place 4.4 percent of their pay into the Federal Employees Retirement System (FERS). When federal workers retire, they receive a defined benefit pension. Workers who elect to keep their employment protections will be required to pay five percentage points more into FERS, raising their mandatory retirement contributions to 9.4 percent of their paycheck. This will not change the benefit they receive upon retirement, so the higher contribution would effectively amount to a lower paycheck.
“It really amounts to charging people for their basic rights,” said Daniel Horowitz, the legislative director of the American Federation of Government Employees (AFGE), a union that represents 820,000 government workers. “If you can’t pay, you lose them.”
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According to a Congressional Budget Office (CBO) analysis of federal workers’ “perceptions of job security” and “willingness to forgo current compensation for future benefits,” three-quarters of eligible workers will likely enter into at-will employment to keep their full paychecks. CBO says that the average salary of affected workers is $71,000, which for many employees does not leave enough wiggle room in their personal budgets to give up 5 percent of their take-home cash per month. Federal workers already make less than their private-sector counterparts, the CBO found. This extra take-home pay cut could be enough to push some federal workers into the private sector.
The CBO estimates that the increased retirement contributions from the remaining one-quarter of workers who reject at-will employment will lead to a modest revenue increase of $4.7 billion over ten years. Since these workers are on defined contribution plans, not defined benefit plans like 401(k)s, that revenue will be spread out among all retirement plans. That means that workers who put away an extra 5 percent don’t receive that money directly—instead, they contribute to the pension pot for all of the employees under FERS.
In an online statement, AFGE called the provision “un-American, anti-union, [and] morally bankrupt,” and added that “if enacted, this change will lead to the eventual extinction of the merit-based, nonpartisan civil service, which is certainly its true purpose.”
Federal-worker job security and morale is at a low point after nearly five months of the Trump administration’s anti–civil service agenda, and this proposal is just one more facet of an agenda to prioritize loyalty over worker rights. According to Margaret Poydock of the Economic Policy Institute, it’s all part of President Trump’s larger goal of reducing the friction of the federal bureaucracy and making it easier for him to enact his agenda.
“Basically, what he’s trying to do is create precedent where he can nominate individuals in those positions who are more aligned with his view, and if they don’t rule in favor of his view, then they potentially could be fired,” she said.
In April, the Office of Personnel Management (OPM) proposed a rule that would reclassify around 50,000 federal employees, making it easier to fire them. The rule would empower federal agencies to “swiftly remove employees … without lengthy procedural hurdles” for reasons including “subversion of presidential directives.”
Trump has also taken aim at the grievance process for federal workers. In February, he fired Merit Systems Protection Board (MSPB) Member Cathy Harris. The MSPB protects the rights of federal workers and resolves disputes between employees and the government, with a specific eye toward prohibiting partisan political determinations imposed on the civil service. Firing Harris denied the MSPB a quorum to hear cases, and Trump has not moved to fill vacancies on the Board, which had no quorum for his entire first term. On May 22, the Supreme Court declined to reinstate Harris to her post.
These are just two examples of Trump’s anti–federal worker crusade, but there are many more rules and executive orders that have taken power away from the civil service and centralized it in the Oval Office. These don’t include the harms done by Elon Musk’s Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE), which has torn its way through the federal workforce, firing or giving buyouts to hundreds of thousands of workers.
“I think the federal workforce has already been deeply demoralized by the actions that Trump and Musk have done to federal workers,” said Poydock about DOGE’s impact in Trump’s second term.
The at-will employment measure isn’t even the only anti–federal worker provision in the “Big Beautiful Bill.” The House has also proposed adding a filing fee for claims under the MSPB. Workers who feel that they have been discriminated against or that their employer has not gone through the right process to dismiss them can file a claim under the MSPB for relief. But if the spending bill passes as it currently stands, these workers would suddenly have to pay over $100 to file these claims, putting a price, however nominal, on basic worker protections.
Taken as a whole, these policies are likely to make the federal workforce more political, say both Poydock and Horowitz. And that politicization could help remove impediments to Trump’s consolidation of power.
“It’s basically a return to the spoils system,” said Horowitz. “When government jobs were basically a patronage system.”
We want to hear from you. If you’re a Hill staffer, policymaker, or subject-matter expert with something to say about the Big Beautiful Bill, or if there’s something in the legislation you want us to report about, write us at info(at)prospect.org.
