New Year, New Opportunities
This past year was a time of great progress and achievement for NFFE and its members. We have seen vast improvements in our organizing, stepped up our communications and secured a series of significant legislative victories.
Now, with 2010 in full swing, we are looking to build on these successes and bring our union to even greater heights. In this spirit, I would like to share with you some of the many priorities that NFFE will pursue as 2010 continues to unfold.
In the early days of this year, we announced the formation of the Federal Workers Alliance (FWA), a coalition of 21 unions representing federal workers. FWA members will work together in solidarity to promote favorable legislation and personnel policies for the more than 300,000 combined federal employees it represents. Working side by side with our union brothers and sisters on these matters benefits us all.
Another important relationship we are looking to cultivate is that between labor and management at the many agencies we represent. We intend to play a very active role in the formation of new agency partnership councils. Our goal is to build a strong foundation for robust and productive dialogue to take place between workers and their managers.
We have an ambitious legislative agenda for 2010. Among our numerous legislative priorities this year, we hope to secure pay parity between military and civilian employees, establish a paid parental leave benefit, and to obtain the benefits that many temporary federal employees are denied.
Lastly, NFFE will continue to focus on organizing and engaging new members. With the new Organizing Strategic Plan in motion, we are committing significant time and resources to growing our union. By year's end we anticipate greater growth in members than we experienced in 2009.
With your help, I am looking forward to making 2010 the best year ever to be a NFFE member.
William R. Dougan
White House Calls for Discretionary Spending Freeze; Impact on Federal Workers Unclear
Thursday, January 28, 2010
(National Federation of Federal Employees)
In last
night’s State of the Union address, President
Obama proposed a three-year discretionary
spending freeze on federal funding that is not
related to national security. The freeze is
proposed to take effect in Fiscal Year
2011.
A number
of agencies and social programs are not
impacted by the proposal. The Departments of
Defense, Homeland Security, and Veterans
Affairs are left out of the plan, as well as
Social Security, Medicare, Medicaid, and
certain international programs.
For
agencies not exempted from the budget freeze,
it is too soon to tell what the impact for each
will be. The White House has indicated that
some agencies and programs will see budget
increases, while others will see decreases, but
the net impact for all the impacted agencies as
a whole will be a Fiscal Year 2011 budget equal
to that of Fiscal Year
2010.
It also
remains unclear what the White House will
propose for the FY11 annual pay adjustment. We
will know more when the President passes his
FY11 budget proposal to Congress on
Monday.
The White House has announced that
salaries of senior White House officials and
other top political appointees will be frozen
in FY11, but the Administration has been made
no mention of what will be offered for military
and civilian federal
employees.
As we
move through the FY11 budget process, NFFE will
continue to push for pay parity between
military and civilian federal employees, and
annual pay adjustments that are consistent with
current law. Furthermore, NFFE will strongly
defend against cuts to the numerous federal
agencies that provide invaluable services to
the American people.
