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.
Pay Freeze Scapegoats Federal Workers
AFL-CIO President Richard Trumka says today’s White House announcement of a two-year pay freeze for federal workers is “bad for the middle class, bad for the economy and bad for business.”
No one is served by our government participating in a “race to the bottom” in wages. The president talked about the need for shared sacrifice, but there’s nothing shared about Wall Street and CEOs making record profits and bonuses while working people bear the brunt.
Pointing to the upcoming federal deficit commission report that is expected to call for wide ranging cuts in crucial federal programs and policies, AFGE President John Gage offered a much more blunt criticism of the pay freeze:
This proposal is a superficial panic reaction to the draconian cuts his deficit commission will recommend. A federal pay freeze saves peanuts at best and, while he may mean it as just a public relations gesture, this is no time for political scapegoating.
NFFE’s Richard Brown Dies at 47: ‘A Trade Unionist at Heart’
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Richard N. Brown, president of the National Federation of Federal Employees (NFFE), died yesterday in Arlington, Va. He was 47 years old.
Brown served as president of the 100,000-member NFFE since 1998. The union represents blue- and white-collar federal workers in more than 30 federal departments and agencies. The NFFE was founded in 1917 and affiliated with the Machinists (IAM) in 1990.
NFFE Secretary-Treasurer Bill Dougan says Brown was “a strong leader, a dedicated trade unionist, and a friend.”
Rick was a trade unionist at heart. He came from a union family and maintained membership in NFFE-IAM and the Laborers Union (LIUNA), the latter being a membership he maintained after leaving construction to become a machinist. Rick was a strong advocate for federal employees. Never one to back down, Rick was a strong presence in the fight against several federal workforce initiatives aimed at contracting out federal government jobs and eliminating federal employees’ unions.
In his passing, we have lost a strong voice and champion for working men and women. We will mourn his loss greatly.
