Unceremonious sacking may preview the future of privatizing US aid

Over the past three weeks, as the Trump administration swiftly dismantled the United States Agency for International Development, some workers experienced particularly unceremonious dismissals. This includes those working for the Global Health Training, Advisory, and Support Contract, or GHTASC, project, which employed the majority of the institutional support contractors in the agency’s Bureau for Global Health. While several employers were involved in this project, Credence Management Solutions, LLC, a private technology and services company, was the prime recipient of the contract. Amid the flurry of USAID workers losing their work, GHTASC workers had an even more abrupt experience than the rest — many of those employed directly by USAID were put on paid administrative leave or unpaid furlough, which allowed them to maintain benefits. But GHTASC employees received an immediate termination letter with no severance and their health insurance was cut four days later. While these people functionally served as USAID employees — working in the agency’s offices, had government emails, and some levels of security clearances — their employment was with GHTASC. This setup, dubbed “perma-lancing,” is increasingly common in the United States. It allowed employers to reap many of the benefits of treating employees as direct hires while contractually keeping them at arm's length in terms of benefits and legal protections. They’re employed “at will,” which allows employers to suddenly terminate their employment. The Trump administration is expected to expand this trend of privatizing the workforce with fewer direct hires with federal benefits, and more contracted to carry out the government’s work. In a letter to the U.S. Congress last week, Secretary of State Marco Rubio wrote that moving forward, USAID’s activities may include “contracting out or privatizing functions or activities performed by Federal employees.” But that doesn’t sit well with some. “It's a specialized workforce that matches skills and talent with dedication, empathy, and lived experience,” one former GHTASC contractor said. “An assembly line mentality to this work where you think you can just exchange the workers, switch the parts, or cut back the inventory will not only be ineffective but detrimental to communities around the world.” And it raises concerns about labor conditions. GHTASC workers were involved in a yearslong effort to improve benefits, including efforts to unionize after they alleged benefits on the contract were slashed in 2022. Workers said they could have been weeks away from unionizing — which some believe could’ve given them bargaining power to negotiate the terms of their dismissal. Devex spoke to five former workers who said GHTASC employers could’ve done more to soften the blow for employees. Credence, the prime on the contract, brings in over $500 million in annual revenue. In particular, they said they would’ve wanted to be furloughed until Feb. 1 so they could retain benefits into this month. Instead, they were left scrambling — moving health appointments and procedures up so they fell within January. “It has been an absolute slap in the face,” one former worker said. “We’ve devoted ourselves to this career.” Despite these complaints, Credence has won awards for its work environment. Among large companies, the Washington Post ranked it 23rd in a list of top workplaces last year. “Employees say they feel supported and empowered by leadership, and they appreciate the work-life balance and opportunities to grow,” the publication wrote. ‘The rug pulled out’ USAID’s workforce had been cobbled together through more than a dozen different hiring mechanisms, including direct-hire government employees and contractors, each with different benefits, authorities, and restrictions — some have described it as a “caste system.” Credence led GHTASC in partnership with the Public Health Institute, or PHI — with both employing the vast majority of GHTASC workers. But there were other partners, including EnCompass, Highbury Defense Group, and the International Business & Technical Consultants Inc., or IBTCI. Credence, as the prime recipient of the contract, set the tone with subawardees on labor conditions, former contractors told Devex. GHTASC had over 450 institutional support contractors working in the agency’s global health bureau at the end of November, a former contractor told Devex. According to USASpending.gov, GHTASC started in 2021 and was supposed to end in 2029, with an award of $682.7 million. GHTASC placed contractors in every office within the Bureau for Global Health — including the President's Malaria Initiative and President’s Emergency Plan for Aids Relief, or PEPFAR. This included people in senior roles and regional responsibilities. They worked in remote pockets of the world, assisting countries with deadly outbreaks, such as Ebola and Marburg, building up primary health care, and were instrumental in delivering vaccines during the COVID-19 pandemic, among other duties. For all intents and purposes, they were USAID employees, unless it related to making budget decisions, formal management of contracts and cooperative agreements, or speaking on behalf of the government, former contractors said. But “those lines got blurred all the time,” one added. “People come to these jobs for a career, and even though you transition from contract to contract, they don't see it that way,” said another. Credence has held 10 USAID prime contracts, as well as others with the Department of Defense, General Services Administration, Department of Justice, and Department of Homeland Security. When the Trump administration began rapidly dismantling USAID, GHTASC workers were some of the first to go. “It has been an absolute slap in the face. We’ve devoted ourselves to this career.” --— former GHTASC worker Credence wrote — on their website which has recently been wiped from the internet — that “central” to their approach for GHTASC was focusing on diversity, equity, and inclusion, or DEI — programming Trump eliminated through an executive order. This made GHTASC an immediate target. In an internal USAID call — of which Devex obtained a recording — a senior official said the agency’s global health bureau initially submitted five awards to the administration with a significant DEI component, including GHTASC, for review. The GHTASC contract management team spent two days removing mentions of DEI from their website and training materials. DEI-related workers were fired first — during the week of Trump’s inauguration. Then, on Jan. 28th, following the State Department order to stop the agency’s work globally, over 400 GHTASC employees received a letter terminating employment immediately — mostly in letters from Credence and PHI, a labor organizer said. Health and dental insurance were severed four days later. They could sign up for the government’s marketplace health insurance system, where they pay out of pocket. But they needed to have quickly done that within a few days after termination by the end of January in order to be covered for February, former workers said. Or they could opt for the continuation of health coverage, or COBRA, which allows them to stay on their previous health insurance — but it’s expensive. One former contractor said it would cost about $2,200 a month for her family of four, but her unemployment checks only total about $1,800. Since she wasn’t able to sign up for a marketplace plan by the end of January — and also hadn’t received the COBRA paperwork to make cost comparisons at that point, she’s currently without insurance. But her family will need to sign up for COBRA because her husband had an emergency room visit in recent days, and COBRA insurance can be signed up retroactively in the first 60 days after losing a job. She received her COBRA paperwork 13 days after her termination. Others said they haven’t yet received it. But then, it’s also been confusing to navigate what’s next. She’s unsure if enrolling in COBRA will lock her family into coverage for the entire year or if they will be able to pivot to the marketplace within the first 60 days. She said her family can afford COBRA for a month or two but “if we're stuck on COBRA for a year, it will bankrupt us,” she said. Her husband also lost his work because he was a consultant for USAID but doesn't qualify for unemployment. “We have no foreseeable income,” she said. “That, to me, is not a humane way to let people go,” the former contractor said. “If Credence had just been a little bit more deliberate in thinking about their employees and not thinking about their bottom line.” Former contractors are also stuck in leases and mortgages in pricey Washington, D.C., which has suddenly become saturated with thousands of unemployed aid and development workers — with few job prospects. “We're all flooding the market at the same time,” another former contractor said. These workers told Devex they wish the company, at a minimum, could’ve waited to lay them off until Feb. 1st — giving them the month to navigate the loss of benefits. Another benefit they had was a flexible spending account which allows workers to set aside pre-tax money from their paycheck to pay for health and dependent care expenses, such as child care. One worker told Devex that employees could put as much as $3,300 in pre-tax funds this year in this account. Many had to scramble to hastily spend this benefit by midnight on the same day they were terminated — others were given until the end of January. There’s also confusion about whether enrolling for the government’s marketplace insurance would result in employees losing this FSA money — since it's tied to their former employer's insurance. Disability coverage also ended on the day of termination. “I understand this is an unforeseeable event, but [Credence] just gave us no heads-up, no ability to respond, and literally just wouldn’t pick up the phone to answer questions,” one former contractor said. “We had the rug pulled out from under us.” Credence declined to comment on this story. USAID and PHI did not respond to Devex’s request for comment. IBTCI, which was a smaller employer on the project, told Devex that none of their workers on the GHTASC project had their health insurance cut at the end of January. While the GHTASC workers experienced a tumultuous termination — all of USAID's staff members have had their personal and professional lives upturned, many in devastating ways. The Trump administration ordered all but several hundred direct hires onto administrative leave — which a judge then temporarily halted. They've been given no clarity on what happens next when the restraining order lifts on Friday. Those stationed abroad were told they must return to the U.S. within 30 days or the government may not pay for their return ticket — this was also temporarily halted. Some are owed thousands of dollars in reimbursements because USAID's financial systems are frozen. And what's happened has caused a ripple effect throughout the aid and development sector — with many organizations that receive USAID funding furloughing huge swaths of their staff, reducing salaries and hours. ‘Race to the bottom’ What unfolded at the end of January comes after a yearslong struggle around labor conditions. At the end of 2022, workers were moved from one government contractor to GHTASC. “They completely gutted the benefits,” said one former contractor, who has been on six different contracts at USAID and the State Department. She said the GHTASC benefits were the worst she’s experienced among all of these contracts. Credence proposed benefits workers would get in their proposal to USAID, a labor organizer said. “I blame USAID more than Credence because they instigated the race to the bottom and Credence would have proposed better benefits if the [request for proposal] USAID put out had asked for them,” this person said. For example, some staff members were given 10 days of parental leave, others none, this person said. They had to then turn to short-term disability at a fraction of pay. One worker, who had three months of paid maternity leave in her last contract, said she found this particularly insulting — she’s devoted her life’s work to areas such as reproductive health and promoting breastfeeding. The workers told Devex they stopped getting cost of living adjustments, travel reimbursements got more restrictive, some said they saw health care costs increase, and their sick and overall leave was cut. One former worker said her personal leave was cut by six days. After about six months of pushing back, they were able to get some sick leave restored, one former worker said — but other cuts remained. These workers raised the alarm in 2022, sending a letter to then-USAID Administrator Samantha Power and Assistant Administrator Atul Gawande, who led the global health bureau, with 340 signatures. They wrote they felt “expendable” and given “sub-par” benefits. Contractors had since galvanized to unionize in a person-to-person effort, to convince hundreds of workers to sign authorization cards to prompt an election. To the best of their knowledge, it’s the first time institutional support contractors at USAID sought to unionize, a labor organizer said. And they believed they were near the finish line. Three days after most of them were sacked, they were supposed to have a petition hearing, which could’ve led to an election in the coming weeks, the organizer said. Had they been unionized, they believe they may have been able to negotiate a furlough until the first of February to retain benefits a bit longer. But now they’ll never know.