The Senate passed H.R. 1, the budget reconciliation bill, without the proposed cuts to employee pay, benefits, and rights.   
 
Today, the U.S. Senate passed H.R. 1, known as the One Big Beautiful Bill Act, which is the budget reconciliation legislation, by a vote of 51 to 50 with Vice President Vance casting the tie-breaking vote. 
 
As you know, last week the Senate Parliamentarian ruled that several anti-worker provisions, including those requiring employees to pay more for their retirement or become at-will, charging unions for the use of agency resources and official time, charging employees a fee to bring cases to the MSPB, and others, violated the Senate’s “Byrd Rule” and could not be included as part of budget reconciliation. The final bill text, which was released over the weekend, also removed the language requiring any non-profit or not-for profit organization receiving payroll deductions from federal employees to pay a 10% service fee to the government. The text retained the border security funding language, including the House-passed provision to hire an additional 5,000 CBP Officers.
 
During the vote-a-rama, which lasted over 24 hours, Senators considered several amendments to the legislation. Senator Kaine (D-VA) forced a floor vote on an amendment prohibiting the firings of federal employee veterans without submitting a report to Congress, which Republicans voted down in a party line vote. Senator Warren (D-MA) also received a vote on her amendment to preserve the funding of the Consumer Finance Protection Bureau, but that amendment also failed on a party line vote. Senator Ernst (R-IA) filed amendments requiring unions to pay for official time and office space, but they did not come up for a vote.
 
The fact that no provision attacking federal employee pay, rights, or benefits made it into this final package is due in large part to the dedication of NTEU members and other federal employees calling and writing their members of Congress demanding that they exclude attacks on federal workers from the final Senate bill. H.R. 1 must now return to the House for consideration. Click here for additional information. I will keep you updated as this process unfolds.
 
Doreen P. Greenwald
National President