NFFE to Congress: Don't Sell Out New Federal Hires on Retirement Benefits
Thursday, February 16, 2012
FOR IMMEDIATE
RELEASE
Contact:
Cory Bythrow, Communications Director
Phone:
(202) 216-4458
Washington, D.C.
– In
response to a reported agreement to increase
employee pension contribution for new federal
hires to 3.1% of their pay as a ‘pay-for’ for
the payroll tax cut extension, National
Federation of Federal Employees National
President William R. Dougan issued the
following statement:
“NFFE is
adamantly opposed to placing any additional
costs on federal employees, who have already
sacrificed billions to address our nation’s
budget deficit. Under the current two-year pay
freeze, federal employees and their families
are making the hard choices they need to to
help their country heal from the great
recession. They have endured the freeze and
done their jobs without complaint, because they
believed that their sacrifice could make a
difference. Today, we are not so sure that
those on Capitol Hill understand the magnitude
of that sacrifice. Now Congress is coming after
the next generation of federal employees by
asking them to pay a permanent price to solve a
temporary problem. Neither current nor future
federal workers got our nation into this mess,
yet Congress is trying to heap the
responsibility of cleaning it up squarely on
their backs. Why aren’t the wealthiest among us
being asked to pay a little more? Why aren’t
banks being asked to repay the public for the
damage they caused to all of us just a few
short years ago? Congress would do this country
a great disservice if it sells out the next
generation of intelligence analysts,
firefighters, and veteran’s nurses simply to
protect millionaires and billionaires from
taking a small hit.
Treating
new federal hires different from current
federal workers with respect to their
retirement is a disturbing precedent. We
are all public servants. We all make sacrifices
to serve our country. Congress must not forget
that.
Federal agencies are only able to recruit the talent they need because, though they don’t pay as much, federal government jobs are still considered good jobs. If we go down this path of taking away key benefits from future federal employees, that will no longer be true. The days of federal agencies hoping to attract the best and brightest will be over. Taking a giant symbolic step in the race to the bottom by undermining middle class federal employees’ retirement security is unfair to workers and it’s bad policy.”
Comments
At the time FERS came into play our Government entered into a contract with its employees - a contract that said it (the Government) would match (up to 5%) the amount that the employee put into TSP. The purpose of FERS was to allow the Government the ability to get out from under the ever increasing cost of the CSRS, especially as the work force was aging and retirements were increasing. A lot of CSRS employees elected to go to FERS based on the promises made � one of which was the matching funds.
Now the Government once again wants to dishonor its contract with its employees (who are supposedly overpaid and lazy to boot) to pay for our Congress's continued inability to do its job. Instead of making the federal workforce pay more and do more with less (less agency funding, less people, less support from our government) why doesn't Congress vote to take the money out of their pay instead?
Why doesn�t our President, instead of putting the burden on his employees (yes, Mr. President, we are your employees) stand up for us once in a while? You, through the Congress, put in place laws that federal employees must execute and then you turn around and make us pay an exorbitant price. You seem to forget that we federal employees are also tax payers � we pay taxes to help fund the programs that result from the laws you pass. Why should we have to pay twice (through paying taxes and then as the result of pay freezes, etc.) when no one else in the country has to do so?