After 27 months of negotiations, the American Federation of Government Employees (AFGE) and the Social Security Administration (SSA) have reached an agreement for the terms of the new national contract. The contract is valid for four years.

“It’s been a long road but we fought hard and proudly won improvements in benefits and working conditions for the employees of the Social Security Administration,” said AFGE National President John Gage, who worked as a disability examiner for the Social Security Administration and was a seminal player in reaching the deal.

Negotiations between AFGE and SSA have been ongoing, two weeks every month, since December 2009. AFGE referred the bargaining to the Federal Service Impasses Panel in September 2011, in reaction to the lack of progress in national contract negotiations.

“We made improvements in eye care and travel benefits, strengthened employee rights in the workplace and allowed for the union to have broader ability to represent employees in meetings with SSA management,” said AFGE Lead Negotiator Witold Skwierczynski. “I want to thank our negotiators, and the SSA negotiators, for the hard work, dedication and countless hours away from family it took to get to this point.”

To see the contract, go to http://www.mycontract2009.org/Contract_Final.php.

WHAT: Award dinner to honor 2012 Yitzhak Rabin Pubic Service Award recipient J. David Cox

WHEN: Wednesday, May 9, 2012

Reception at 5:30 p.m.
Dinner at 7:00 p.m.

WHERE:Capital Hilton
1001 16th Street, NW
Washington, DC

The American Federation of Government Employees´ National Secretary-Treasurer J. David Cox will receive the prestigious 2012 Yitzhak Rabin Public Service Award at a dinner in his honor on Wednesday, May 9, 2012.This award is presented by the American Friends of the Yitzhak Rabin Center (AFYRC) honoring those whose work reflects the legacy of the late Israeli Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin.

"It has been a labor of love representing VA employees, federal employees, D.C. government employees and, of course, my union, the American Federation of Government Employees, for the past 26 years. The recognition of our union´s work to provide federal workers with job dignity, fair pay and adequate working conditions is an affirmation for AFGE that echoes Prime Minister Rabin´s belief in the labor movement," said AFGE National Secretary-Treasurer J. David Cox.

The AFYRC is a non-profit organization that supports the mission of the Yitzhak Rabin Center in Tel Aviv. The Center is the official memorial to the slain Prime Minister Rabin, who dedicated his life to peace, leadership and public service.

For more information on the AFYRC visit their website at www.friendsofrabin.org. To learn more about NST Cox and AFGE please visit www.afge.org.

WASHINGTON- The American Federation of Government Employees today applauded the 26 Senate members who sent a letter to Defense Secretary Leon Panetta asking him to lift the arbitrary cap on the civilian workforce.

Under the Defense Department´s co-called "Efficiency Initiative," the number of civilian employees has been capped at 2010 levels, yet there has been no comparable cap on the contractor workforce. This has encouraged managers to use contractors instead of civilian employees, even though privatization is more costly and also violates the law.

The letter, initiated by Sens. Sherrod Brown of Ohio and Kirsten Gillibrand of New York, asks Panetta to manage each group of workers - military, civilian, and contractors - from the total force perspective.

"When determining whether services should be performed by employees or contractors, DoD´s sourcing decisions should be made on the basis of law, cost, policy and risk, and not because DoD managers simply have fewer civilian employee slots," the senators wrote.

Until the cap on the civilian workforce is lifted, DoD should cap spending on service contracts at fiscal 2010 levels, as mandated by the 2012 National Defense Authorization Act, and should cap the service contractor workforce, the lawmakers wrote.

A companion letter in the House, initiated by Rep. Maurice Hinchey of New York, was signed by 131 lawmakers and sent to Panetta in March.

"This ill-conceived cap has forced managers to cut tens of thousands of federal jobs, while the much larger and more expensive contractor workforce continues to grow unchecked," AFGE National President John Gage said. "It´s long past time that we restore some balance and fairness to how the entire workforce is managed and treated. I hope Secretary Panetta takes immediate action to comply with these recommendations."

A copy of the letter is posted online athttp://afgeunionblog.files.wordpress.com/2012/04/sec-panetta-letter-04-25-121.pdf.

WASHINGTON - American Federation of Government Employees Legislative and Political Director Beth Moten today sent a letter to members of the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee urging them to reject a proposal that would amount to a $79 billion tax increase on federal employees by requiring them to contribute an additional 5 percent of their salary toward their defined pension benefit plan.

A copy of the letter is posted at http://afgeunionblog.files.wordpress.com/2012/04/letter-to-ogr-opposing-rep-reconciliation-recommendations.pdf

WASHINGTON – The nation’s largest federal employee union today expressed profound disappointment over the Office of Management and Budget’s announcement of a 10 percent increase in the salaries that federal contractors can charge taxpayers.

The American Federation of Government Employees for years has been calling attention to runaway contractor payments. In a notice issued Monday in the Federal Register, OMB increased the maximum annual salary that government contractors can charge taxpayers for each of their five most highly paid executives from $693,951 in 2010 to $763,029 in 2011. Other non-Defense contractor employees are not subject to the cap and can earn far larger salaries that are subsidized by taxpayers.

The compensation cap has tripled since 1995 and will continue to grow unless the statutory formula used for determining the cap is revised.

“Current federal employees have had their own salaries frozen for two years and new employees will have to pay four times as much in retirement contributions, saving the government $75 billion. Yet nothing is being done to trim out-of-control contractor spending,” AFGE National President John Gage said. “Taxpayers should not be on the hook for these outrageous salaries that no one in government earns – not federal employees, not members of Congress and not even the President of the United States.”

In March, a bipartisan group of senators led by Senator Barbara Boxer of California introduced a bill that would cap the reimbursement rate at the president’s salary, currently $400,000, and apply it to all contractor employees. Lowering the cap would not limit how much these contractor employees can earn, only how much can be charged to the government.

A similar bill introduced in the House by Representative Paul Tonko would lower the cap to $200,000 and apply it to all contractors.

OMB itself noted that increase in the compensation cap “has far outpaced the rate of inflation, the rate of growth of private-sector salaries generally, and the rate of growth of Federal salaries – forcing our taxpayers to reimburse contractors for levels of executive compensation that cannot be justified for Federal contract work.”

Unfortunately, OMB has not endorsed extending the cap to all contractor employees, proposing instead to lower the cap to $200,000 for only the five most lavishly compensated employees at each government contractor.