AFGE Says Republicans Have Some Explaining to Do
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In a nationwide advertising campaign getting underway this weekend, AFGE members are calling out Republican lawmakers for supporting a plan to pay for the payroll tax relief extension by slashing federal employee wages.
The new ads feature a Veterans Affairs nurse, a Defense Department worker and a federal corrections officer. They want GOP lawmakers to “explain it to me” how cutting federal pay and benefits helps put Americans back to work. Asks Minnesota VA nurse Teresa Capecchi:
Twelve percent of the salary I earn caring for veterans goes to my retirement. Explain it to me, GOP, how cutting my retirement puts people to work.
Republicans in Congress have proposed paying for the payroll tax relief extension by freezing federal employee salaries for another year. Says AFGE National President John Gage:
Federal employees already have given up their pay raises for two years in a row and many are in danger of losing their jobs because of drastic agency downsizing efforts. Freezing their wages for another year adds insult to injury and does nothing to get Americans back to work.
Hundreds of AFGE members will be in Washington for the union’s annual Legislative and Grassroots Mobilization Conference Feb. 12-15. Members will meet with their congressional representatives during the week to address the attacks on federal employees’ pay, pensions and benefits.
House Plan Attacks 99%, Benefits 1%
House Republican leaders unveiled a budget plan today in which “once again rushed to the rescue of the 1 percent” by insisting that millionaires should not have to pay one penny in taxes, according to AFL-CIO President Richard Trumka. Instead,
the House Republican proposal would cut benefits for jobless workers, cut pay for public employees, cut preventive health services, reduce premium assistance for low- and middle-income individuals buying health insurance, and raise premiums for many Medicare beneficiaries. House Republicans obviously have more sympathy for millionaires than for the jobless.
AFGE President John Gage also blasted the Republicans leaders” Middle Class Tax Relief and Job Creation Act, introduced by House Speaker John Boehner.
This is just another attack on the 99% on behalf of their good friends—the 1%. They are targeting a small segment of people who make $30,000 to $70,000 a year, rather than asking their millionaire and billionaire supporters to pay a little more. It’s not right, and the American people should be outraged.
Dec. 10: NYC March for Voting Rights Begins at Koch Industries
Voting rights are human rights. To bring that point home, a coalition of labor, civil rights and community organizations will celebrate Dec. 10, International Human Rights Day, with a Stand for Freedom march and rally, beginning at the Manhattan headquarters of Koch Industries, and ending at the United Nations’ Dag Hammarskjold Plaza.
Where and when:
Saturday, Dec. 10
10:30 a.m. to 11:30 a.m.: Assemble 61st Street and Madison Avenue, Koch Industries New York City office.
11:30 a.m.: March from 61st Street and Madison Avenue to Dag Hammarskjold Plaza at 47th Street and 2nd Avenue
12:30 p.m.: Rally at Dag Hammarskjold Plaza, across from the United Nations building
Earlier this year, as anti-labor laws swept state legislatures dominated by Republicans backed by the billionaire brothers, Charles and David Koch (who together own most of Koch Industries), some of these same legislatures passed laws designed to suppress voter turnout, especially targeting African Americans and immigrants. Read the rest of this entry »
Bad Economics: Cutting Federal Workers, Jobs
Arizona Republican Sen. Jon Kyl doesn’t want to to pay for a one-year extension of the Social Security payroll tax cut by taxing the wealthiest 1 percent. He wants to take it out of the pay of federal workers.
Kyl is proposing to maintain the current pay freeze in place for federal workers and requiring the government hire only one new employee for every three who leave the federal workforce. A Senate vote on the the freeze-pay-and-cut-jobs idea from Kyl could happen as early as tonight.
Federal workers have already shouldered an enormous burden, contributing more than $60 billion to deficit reduction because of the current two-year pay freeze put in place about a year ago, according to AFGE.
Across-the-board pay freezes dampen the American economy, and arbitrary federal job cuts prompt federal agencies to privatize services and to hire expensive contractors, which costs taxpayers twice as much, according to a study by the Project on Government Oversight, a nonpartisan watchdog group. Read the rest of this entry »
Fla. Nurses Vote NNU, Health Care Workers at VA Choose AFGE
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Registered nurses at Palmetto General Hospital in Hialeah, Fla., last night overwhelmingly voted—86 percent—to join National Nurses Organizing Committee-Florida, the state affiliate of National Nurses United (NNU). Earlier this month, AFGE signed up 700 medical professionals at the Veterans Affairs’ (VA’s) Edward Hines Jr. Hospital in Hines, Ill.
Key issues for the 500 Palmetto nurses include a stronger voice in patient care protections, improved staffing and strengthened economic and workplace standards for RNs. RN Ailen Leiva called the win “a clear mandate by Palmetto RNs who see an urgent need to improve quality of care.”
Rose Campbell, an intensive care unit RN at Palmetto, says:
I am looking forward to bargaining for improved staffing, which will decrease turnover. We need to recruit and retain experienced RNs in order to provide the safest patient care possible.
African American Delegation Arriving Now in Alabama
Brenda Loya in AFL-CIO Media Affairs sends us this from Alabama, where she will report on the delegation of African American labor and civil rights leaders as they investigate Alabama’s recently passed anti-immigrant law. Follow the delegation here.
With the passage of H.B. 56, Alabama has taken a huge step backward, into the 1950s. Today, an African American delegation of labor and civil rights leaders traveled to Birmingham, Ala., to help shed a light on what is seen as one of the harshest immigration laws in the country and how it invokes inhumanity reminiscent of the Jim Crow South.
The delegation will investigate first-hand the impact of Alabama’s H.B. 56 on the lives of Latino working families. National, state and local leaders will hear from the families directly impacted by the law, document the impact of the law on Latino communities, acquire a better understanding of the civil rights implications of the legislation and assess the impact of the law on workers and businesses.
1,400 Fort Knox Workers Vote to Join AFGE
Workers at the U.S. Army Human Resources Command in Ft. Knox, Ky., voted by a better than 3-to-1 margin to join AFGE. The more than 1,400 workers are Army civilian personnel specialists who provide human resources services to soldiers, veterans, retirees and Army families. They are part of the Army’s Human Resource Command.
AFGE President John Gage says:
Civilian employees in the Defense Department are vital to ensuring our military is ready to go into battle at a moment’s notice and treated with dignity and respect once they return. These HR employees are a critical link in this process and they deserve all of the workforce rights and protections that union membership provides.
The workers were transferred to Ft. Knox as part of the 2005 Base Realignment and Closure process, which recommended consolidating all of the Army’s human resources functions at a new Human Resources Center of Excellence at Ft. Knox. Even though the employees already were represented by AFGE, the Federal Labor Authority required a new election be held to determine if the transferred employees wanted to retain their union representation.
AFGE, Allies Rally Against Social Security Administration Budget Cuts
Today, AFGE members who work for the Social Security Administration (SSA) and their allies are staging informational pickets outside some 140 Social Security offices around the nation. They are protesting huge proposed budget cuts that would severely impact services to the elderly, disabled and children.
Joining the AFGE members are activists from the Alliance for Retired Americans, the Strengthen Social Security campaign and the National Committee to Preserve Social Security and Medicare.
The cuts would mean many of the agency’s 1,500 field offices would be forced to close, phone calls would go unanswered and benefit applications and other critical workloads would become seriously backlogged, resulting in delayed and incorrect benefit payments. Says Witold Skwierczynski, president of AFGE’s Council of Field Operations Locals:
Cutting Social Security’s budget at a time that record baby boomers are seeking benefits is another example of bad Washington politics. These cuts will only punish Americans who count on Social Security and Medicare by adding to backlogs and limiting assistance for our seniors, the disabled and families that have lost a parent or spouse. Read the rest of this entry »
Hudson Valley Union Members Raise Funds for Habitat for Humanity
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Brian Pugh, deputy political director for the Hudson Valley Area Labor Federation, sends us this report.
The Hudson Valley Area Labor Federation celebrated the end of summer with a Brunch to Build Homes on behalf of Habitat for Humanity of Greater Newburgh. Dozens of union members took part in the Sept. 10 fundraiser on the Newburgh Waterfront and raised $2,000. Labor sponsors included the HVALF, the Wappingers Congress of Teachers, AFGE Local 3740, Civil Service Employees Association (CSEA) Local 302, United Food and Commercial Workers (UFCW) Local 1500 and Operating Engineers (IUOE) Local 30.
Event sponsors praised the event.
Mike Salvia, vice president for the Hudson Valley Area Labor Federation, said:
Union Heroes Made a Difference on 9/11
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As the 10th anniversary of the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attack approaches, the union movement remembers those who lost their lives, those who risked their lives to get others to safety and those who took part in the cleanup and rebuilding efforts that followed.
On the AFL-CIO website here, you can find a video we produced after the attacks of union members describing their efforts. Also on the site is a message from AFL-CIO President Richard Trumka and links to union websites about 9/11.
A member of AFGE Local 2004, Jeffrey Matthews was employed as a federal police officer with the Defense Protective Service (now called the U.S. Pentagon Police) on 9/11. His and other AFGE members’ stories are featured here. He says when he saw the TV broadcast of a plane flying into the World Trade Center, he jumped into his police uniform, grabbed his weapon, ran to his car and headed for the Pentagon.
