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House of Representatives

Federal legislation underway to negatively affect our pensions. Watch the videos at the bottom of this page and follow the links to contact Congress.

Key House Committee Passes Measure to Cut Federal Jobs by 10% Over Three Years
Friday, November 4, 2011 (National Federation of Federal Employees)

As the holiday the season draws nearer, it looks like there will be little to be cheerful about for federal employees watching Congress.
 
On Thursday, the House Committee on Oversight and Government reform approved H.R. 3029, a bill that would reduce the federal workforce by 200,000 jobs by 2015. It would do so by replacing one federal employee for every three who retire, separate, or otherwise depart from the government.
 
Bah humbug is right. True, this measure is just one of many anti-federal worker bills to be considered in the House as of late; but what makes this different is that it took a vital leap toward becoming law by achieving committee approval. Whereas others have merely been proposed, touted, and dangled in the media spotlight, this measure succeeded in passing a full committee vote, with 24 voting for and 14 against. This means that the bill will now go before the full House of Representatives for a vote (though no date has been set as of this writing) where it could take yet another important step in becoming law.
 
“This is a serious proposal that has more support in Congress than some think,” said NFFE Legislative Director Randy Erwin. “We can’t be complacent and assume this is merely political theatre. This proposal could spell disaster for hundreds of thousands of federal workers and their families. We can't allow this harmful piece of legislation to pass into law."
 
The only way that this bill will be stopped is if federal workers take things into their own hands and let Congress know that they will not take this laying down. Visit our Legislative Action Center to see what you can do fight back.

Lawmakers push extended pay freeze, increased pension contributions
By Emily Long govexec.com October 14, 2011

Lawmakers in both the House and Senate are calling on the deficit-reduction super committee to make further cuts to federal pay and benefits.
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Lawmakers again seek to cut federal workforce through attrition
By Kellie Lunney govexec.com September 23, 2011

Lawmakers in both chambers have introduced legislation that aims to reduce the federal workforce by 10 percent by 2015 through attrition.
Rep. Mick Mulvaney, R-S.C., and Sen. Ron Johnson, R-Wis., estimate the legislation, which they introduced this week, will save $139 billion over the next decade. The bill calls for hiring one federal employee to replace every three workers who retire or leave their job.
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Second Shoe Drops: Senators Propose Massive Federal Job Cuts, Salary Freezes, as Part of Debt-Ceiling Package
Friday, August 5, 2011
(National Federation of Federal Employees)

When Congress and the Administration came to an agreement to raise the federal debt limit earlier this month, both parties agreed to formulate a bipartisan committee to find $1.5 trillion in additional savings by year’s end.
The idea was to bring both parties together to hammer out a responsible, bipartisan compromise that everyone could rally around. This so-called ‘super committee’ would be made up of three Democrats and three Republicans from each house of Congress, consisting of 12 members in total. With the long, bruising debt-ceiling fight behind them, the time for serious business was about to get under way. At least, that is what was supposed to happen.
Merely two days after the agreement was reached – before a single super committee member had been appointed – Senators Tom Coburn (R-OK) and Orrin Hatch (R-UT) were already trying to dictate the terms of the debate. Tuesday, they introduced S. 1476, the Federal Workforce Reduction and Reform Act of 2011, a bill that would freeze federal pay and bonuses for an additional three years, slash the federal workforce by 300,000 jobs over ten, and cut the federal travel budget by 75%.
Of course, these cuts are nothing new, as Congressional Republicans have pushed similar measures time and time again over the past several years. But this time, things could be different. According to an article in The Hill newspaper Wednesday, Hatch said that he and other Republicans Senators would put forth this proposal as a down payment on the $1.5 trillion savings goal. If they follow through on their threat and put these policies on the negotiations table, they represent far more than the idle threats they have posed in the past.
“We cannot and must not allow federal employees to become a bargaining chip on the Congressional negotiating table, "said NFFE National President William R. Dougan. “Federal employees have already sacrificed with a two year pay freeze; agency budgets across government have been slashed, costing jobs; workers have twice been brought to the brink of furloughs due to funding crises. Federal employees have already made immense sacrifices to get our nation’s fiscal house in order. We will stand in staunch opposition to any effort to balance the budget on the backs of our nation’s border patrol agents, Defense civilians, VA nurses and doctors, and all federal workers who serve their country every day.”
While Congress spends the month of August vacationing and raising money in their home districts, NFFE and other unions will be working to cut this plan off at the knees before any damage is done.
“This problem isn’t going away,” said Randy Erwin, NFFE Legislative Director. “We are going to be in struggle after struggle to defend the modest pay and benefits that federal workers earn. Those in Congress who are targeting federal workers for cuts will never be satisfied by the cuts they are able to make; they will keep coming back again and again until there is nothing left to take, and the agencies we work for can no longer function. That is why we must draw a line in the sand and stop the Coburn/Hatch bill.”

New Budget Proposal Offers Deepest Cuts Yet to Federal Workforce, Benefits
Tuesday, July 19, 2011
(National Federation of Federal Employees)

Monday, Republican Senator Tom Coburn of Oklahoma released a far-reaching budget proposal that seeks to cut $9 trillion dollars from federal programs over the next decade. To fund these massive reductions, the Senator proposed the deepest cuts yet to federal agencies and their workers.
The proposal would reduce the number of federal employees by a full fifteen percent, reducing the number of workers by 300,000 in ten years. It would do so by hiring just two workers for every three who leave, an approach many Congressional Republicans have embraced this past year.

In addition to draconian reductions in the number of workers, the measure would also extend the widely unpopular pay freeze by another year. Coburn further recommends freezing merit bonuses through 2013 and locality pay through 2017. With regard to benefits, the proposal would limit federal workers' ability to carry over sick leave from one year to the next.

In this sweeping measure, even retirees would not escape the Senator’s budget axe. His plan would alter the formula used to calculate retirees’ annual cost-of-living adjustment, lowering the vital adjustments needed to live on a fixed income.
“I’m not surprised by this latest proposal,” said NFFE Legislative Director Randy Erwin. “Each budget plan being offered is more outlandish than the last, and as usual, federal workers are in the crosshairs. I’m sick and tired of lawmakers protecting their special interests and pet projects then turning around and asking federal workers to pay for it. Now they’re going after federal retirees too. This Coburn budget is unacceptable, and every federal worker – current or retired – should be outraged by it.”

National President Dougan to House Committee: Non-Strategic Workforce Cuts Hurt Taxpayers

Thursday, May 26, 2011  
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
Contact: Cory Bythrow,
Communications Director Phone: (202) 216-4458

Washington, D.C. – This morning William R. Dougan, National President of the National Federation of Federal Employees, a national union representing 110,000 federal workers government-wide, delivered testimony before the House Subcommittee on the Federal Workforce, U.S. Postal Service, and Labor Policy on the matter of “Rightsizing the Federal Workforce.”
 
Dougan defended the scope and mission of the federal workforce, emphasizing that the true measure of government’s size is not the number of federal employees, as others at the hearing claimed. The true measure of government, Dougan contends, is dollars and cents.
 
“Reducing an agency’s workforce without a corresponding reduction in the agency’s mandate actually increases the size of government,” said Dougan. “In the end, there are generally no savings derived from arbitrary staff reductions; rather a cost-shift moves resources away from the federal workforce to contractors. This is a pointless exercise that reduces government efficiency, hurts the services that federal agencies provide, and sticks taxpayers with a bigger bill.”
 
Also testifying before the committee were House Representatives Cindy Lummis (R-WY) and Tom Marino (R-PA), who advocated for their proposals to reduce the federal workforce through attrition and institute an across-the-board federal hiring freeze, respectively. Dougan was quick to point out that these approaches had more to do with scoring political points than making a good faith effort to get spending in check.
 
“If Congress is serious about truly reducing the size of government, then lawmakers are going to have to make the tough choices about which programs to reshape, scale back, or discontinue altogether,” said Dougan. “A non-strategic, broad-brushed approach to cost-cutting that simply mandates significant personnel reductions in federal agencies will fail to achieve savings and will cause wastefulness and disarray in numerous agencies throughout the government.”
 
Dougan argued further that these policies would have a major impact on the government’s ability to deliver the critical services that the American people rely on. From veterans hospitals, to passport offices and national parks, workforce reductions in already understaffed federal agencies would seriously diminish the quality of key services.
 
“Are we really going to scale back inspections of our food and water supply that keep our families and our communities safe,” Dougan asked? “Are we going to reduce the number of men and women we have battling forest fires that threaten hundreds of communities throughout our country every year? That is the reality of what these staff cuts mean for the American people.”

Full Oral Testimony (PDF): http://www.nffe.org/ht/a/GetDocumentAction/i/32580
Full Written Testimony (PDF): http://www.nffe.org/ht/a/GetDocumentAction/i/32570

2011 IAM Legislative Conference
NFFE Issue Position Papers

Federal Employees Union Praises White House Executive Order Establishing Labor-Management Partnerships
NFFE News Release
Wednesday, December 9, 2009

Washington, D.C. – This morning President Barack Obama signed an Executive Order (E.O.) establishing labor-management forums, an action that will improve the delivery of government services by tapping into the knowledge and expertise that exists within the federal workforce.  By establishing an environment where federal workers have an opportunity to be heard, the best ideas on how to make government run better can be brought forward and considered by federal agencies.
 
A top priority for federal employee unions, the signing of the E.O. could mark the end of an extended period of poor labor-relations at many federal agencies.  A similar labor-management partnership existed under the Clinton Administration, but President George W. Bush abolished the partnerships as one of his first acts in office, an action that soured labor-management rapport from the very start of his administration.
 
“We are very pleased to see the Obama Administration take meaningful strides to engage the federal workforce,” said William R. Dougan, national president of the National Federation of Federal Employees.  “Federal employees care deeply about the service they provide to the American people, but for almost a decade they have lacked an avenue to contribute ways to make the agencies they work for more efficient and effective.  Going forward, federal workers will have the ability to contribute their ideas, and the American people will benefit because of it.”
 
The E.O. represents a clear step in the right direction, but federal employee unions did not get everything they desired in the E.O.  Federal unions have been lobbying the Administration hard for mandatory bargaining rights on all permissive subjects.  While the E.O. does not prevent agencies from bargaining permissive subjects if they choose to do so, as written, the E.O. gives agencies the ability to opt out of bargaining permissive subjects with employee unions.  The Administration has committed to testing mandatory bargaining on permissive subject at some federal agencies through a pilot program, the details of which are not spelled out in the E.O.
 
“Mandatory bargaining on permissive subjects would have been the homerun ball for us, but we didn’t get that,” said Dougan.  “Nonetheless, we are still in a much better place today than we have been for the last nine years.  We consider this executive order a good starting point as we move into a much anticipated era of labor-management cooperation in the federal government.  We look forward to rolling up our sleeves and working together to tackle the many important issues before us which impact the federal workforce.”

NFFE supports bill to attract former federal employees back to civil service
NFFE news release Feb. 4, 2009

Washington, D.C. – The National Federation of Federal Employees (NFFE), a national union representing 100,000 federal government workers, enthusiastically endorses H.R. 828 the “FERS Redeposit Act,” introduced in the U.S. House of Representatives yesterday by Congressman Jim Moran (D-VA), along with Frank Wolf (R-VA) and Gerry Connolly (D-VA). This legislation gives individuals who, upon their return to civil service from the private sector, the ability to reinvest their full federal retirement annuity without losing credit for previous years of service.
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Obama hosts labor leaders, will undo Bush orders
Associated Press January 30, 2009 WASHINGTON (AP)

President Obama, reaching out to the working and middle classes as he seeks to revive the economy, is reversing a number of George W. Bush's executive orders that critics regard as bad for labor unions. Labor leaders were to visit the White House for a second consecutive day Friday, where, a union official said, Obama was to abolish four of his predecessor's directives that unions opposed and then reintroduce Vice President Joe Biden's task force focused on the middle class.
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Bush issues order implementing 3.9 percent pay raise
By Alyssa Rosenberg  Government Exec. December 19, 2008

President Bush on Thursday issued an executive order implementing the 3.9 percent pay hike for federal employees included in the Consolidated Security, Disaster Assistance and Continuing Appropriations Act passed in September. The 3.9 percent figure is 1 percentage point higher than the administration initially proposed in its February budget, and brings the 2009 civilian pay increase in line with the raise for members of the military.
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Obama Voices Support for Labor
Federal Managers Daily Report: November 19, 2008

In a letter to the American Federation of Government Employees stating his concerns for DHS, president-elect Obama stated that he "supports collective bargaining rights for all workers."

He pledged to "review decisions by the Bush administration that have denied these rights to federal employees and seek to restore them."

The letter also spoke against the concept of pay for performance, saying the current administration, by under-funding related initiatives, created systems that reward some employees at the expense of other employees.

Obama called that concept "unfair," saying it harms morale.

Union hardens its stance on Pentagon personnel system
By Brittany R. Ballenstedt bballenstedt@govexec.com November 6, 2008

The American Federation of Government Employees said on Wednesday that it plans to seek arbitration or file a lawsuit against the Pentagon's pay-for-performance system.

In a conference call with reporters, AFGE President John Gage said the union was weighing its options for challenging some of the final regulations issued in September by the Defense Department that modified portions of its National Security Personnel System. In particular, the union charged that the new rules limit the scope of collective bargaining.
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House Committee underway to negatively affect our pensions. Watch the videos below and follow the links below.

Part One


Part Two