Tag: American Federation of Government Employees

Executive Order Ruling – Call NOW!!!

Today, July 16, 2019, the U.S. Court of Appeals, District of Columbia, overturned a lower court decision that AFGE won rolling back Trump’s three 2018 Memorial Day Executive Orders (EOs.) The EOs gutted your rights in the workplace and your union’s ability to represent you. The Appeals Court reversed the District Court’s August 2018 decision – which had ruled that certain provisions of the orders were in violation of the Federal Labor Relations Statute– and said that the Unions have to challenge the EOs before the Federal Labor Relations Authority before jurisdiction could be had in federal court.

This ruling has come as a shock to AFGE Local 704 and other unions representing EPA federal employees–we’re still reeling from the EO-inspired unilateral management anti-worker directive (UMAD) imposed on July 8.
 
AFGE has sprung into action and has created a website for you to fight back. Join your union brothers and sisters across the country and call on members of Congress to stand with federal workers and protect our workplace rights. The union-busting framework laid out in the executive orders and the actions already taken with unilateral directives demonstrate clearly that there must be a check on the president’s power to destroy federal employees’ union rights. Call the Capitol switchboard at 202.224.3121, ask to be connected to your Representative or Senator(s) office, and urge them to fight these EOs.

We have no time to be demoralized! See more Ways to Take Action: visit https://www.afge.org/fightback. Read the EO Summary.
 
See also the July/Aug. 2018 – Vol. LXXXVII No. 4 AFGE The Government Standard issue devoted to the 2018 EOs. 

Federal workers falling further behind in pay, council finds

Federal Eye

Federal workers falling further behind in pay, council finds

A federal advisory group reported Tuesday that federal workers have fallen slightly further behind the private sector in pay, a trend that union leaders said they hope will be stopped by getting the government back in the habit of paying annual raises.

The Federal Salary Council, a group of union officials and pay policy experts, said that the average “pay gap” in favor of the private sector now stands at 35.4 percent, up from 34.6 percent last year and 26.3 percent in 2011.

(Kim Hong-Ji/Reuters)

(Kim Hong-Ji/Reuters)

The pay gap figure, based on data from the Bureau of Labor Statistics, involves employees paid under the largest of the government’s many pay systems, the General Schedule for white-collar employees below the executive level. Pay rates under the GS system are locality-based, varying among 31 metropolitan areas, the entirety of both Alaska and Hawaii, and a catchall “rest of the U.S.” locality for everywhere else apart from foreign countries. Continue reading “Federal workers falling further behind in pay, council finds”

Budget Conference Deal Summary/Talking Points

Budget Conference Deal Summary/Talking Points

Summary of Elements Impacting Feds:

1. Post-12/31/13 hires will pay an additional 1.3% toward their pensions, for total of 4.4%

2. FEHB will add a ‘self plus one’ option, which inevitably increases family plan premiums

3. Contractor salary reimbursement cap dropped to $487,000

4. The total deal is $85 billion. About $45 billion of that replaces sequestration cuts in 2014. About $20 billion replaces sequestration cuts in 2015. (Washington Post) Continue reading “Budget Conference Deal Summary/Talking Points”

Mixed Reviews for Proposed Pension Contribution Hikes

Mixed Reviews for Proposed Pension Contribution Hikes

J. David Cox, AFGE National President
J. David Cox, AFGE National President AFGE

The budget deal has been struck.

To review, the compromise package to roll back sequestration cuts required by the 2011 Budget Control Act for two years targets federal employees’ pensions as expected. While current workers were spared, civil servants hired after 2013 would pay 4.4 percent of their annual salaries toward their defined retirement benefit. This marks a 1.3 percent increase from the current contribution requirement for new hires, though any employee hired in or before 2012 pays only 0.8 percent of their salary toward their pension.

Military retirees’ pensions would also take a hit, as the deal requires a less generous annual cost of living adjustment. Overall, the plan takes $12 billion in savings from federal workers. Continue reading “Mixed Reviews for Proposed Pension Contribution Hikes”

Largest Federal Employee Union Leader Rejects Budget Deal Targeting Federal Pensions

PR Newswire: news distribution, targeting and monitoring

Largest Federal Employee Union Leader Rejects Budget Deal Targeting Federal Pensions

 
AFGE logo. (PRNewsFoto/American Federation of Government Employees)

AFGE rejects notion that there should be trade-off between federal programs and federal employees

WASHINGTON, Dec. 10, 2013 /PRNewswire-USNewswire/ — American Federation of Government Employees National President J. David Cox Sr. issued the following statement in response to the budget deal announced today by the Budget Conference Committee:

“Despite the extraordinarily hard work of several Congressional leaders, AFGE cannot support any budget deal that asks for more from federal employees. AFGE represents more than just the 670,000 federal and D.C government employees on the rolls today, but every other federal worker who will one day take the oath and be forced to live with this needless pension cut.

“AFGE rejects the notion that there should be a trade-off between funding the programs to which federal employees have devoted their lives, and their own livelihoods. Though the $6 billion in increased retirement contributions for new employees is less severe than the administration’s $20 billion proposal, it is still unacceptable.

“Newly hired federal employees already pay 3.1% of their salaries toward their defined benefit pension and 6.2% to Social Security. Forcing employees hired after 2013 to pay an additional 1.3% — for a total of 4.4% — toward their pension will make it all but impossible for them to fund their Thrift Savings Plan accounts.  The result will be a serious shortfall in their retirement income security, and a substantial lowering of their standard of living. Continue reading “Largest Federal Employee Union Leader Rejects Budget Deal Targeting Federal Pensions”

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