Feb. 8, 2013
 Lawmakers Name Programs Expected to Get Hit under Sequestration:
Members of the House Appropriations Committee on Thursday issued a
primary report detailing government programs that would get hit if the
$85 billion across-the-board-cut for fiscal 2013 were to take effect on
March 1. As lawmakers still disagree on whether or how to avert the
automatic spending cuts, the likely results are as follows:
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Food Safety: USDA would furlough federal meat and poultry inspectors for weeks (6,000 to be furloughed, according to Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack).
Slaughterhouses and processing plants would be forced to shut down or
operate fewer hours as they cannot operate without inspectors.
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U.S. Coast Guard: The agency’s operations would be reduced by 25%, jeopardizing the safety of the country’s water ways.
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U.S. Customs and Border Protection:
Border Patrol agents and CBP officers would be furloughed for up to two
weeks, jeopardizing the security of the nation’s points of entry.
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Law enforcement/BOP:
About 1,300 Bureau of Prisons correctional officers and 1,000 federal
law enforcement agents would be furloughed, endangering everyone in the
communities.
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Air Traffic Control: 4,000 FAA employees would be furloughed, resulting in delays and economic losses.
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Medical research:
More than $1.6 billion would be cut from the National Institutes of
Health’s research projects aimed at finding treatments for diseases like
cancer and diabetes.
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Disaster relief:
More than $1 billion would be cut from FEMA’s disaster relief fund.
Sandy assistance that has been approved would be cut by an additional
$1.9 billion.
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Maternal and child care:
Head Start and Early Head Start would drop 70,000 children. Up to
30,000 working parents would lose child care services. More than 600,000
poor children would be dropped from the Supplemental Nutrition Program,
which would see a $353 million cut in funding.
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Embassy security: U.S. diplomats and embassies around the world would be less safe as they would face $168 million in cuts.
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Military operations:
DoD’s operating budgets would be reduced by 20%, hurting the military’s
operations and readiness. The department would also have to delay
payment to TRICARE providers as its health program is facing cuts of $3
billion.
“This across-the-board cut will slow economic
growth and job creation while cutting services and investments critical
to the American people,” House Appropriations Committee Ranking Member Nita Lowey
and her colleagues said in the statement. “Sequestration comes on top
of $1.5 trillion in discretionary cuts already enacted, the single
largest cause of the economic contraction in the 4th quarter of 2012.”
 Anti-Job Lawmakers Push Bill to Cut Federal Workforce to Avoid Sequestration:
Lawmakers in the House and Senate this week introduce a bill that would
require federal agencies to hire only one employee for every three who
leave the government as a way to avoid sequestration. The 2013 Down
Payment to Protect National Security Act, which also calls for a 10 %
cut in the federal workforce through attrition, would worsen the
country’s unemployment, fatten defense contractor cronies, and unfairly
put a burden on workers who have to shoulder more workload. Federal
employees are once again being used to pay for a made-up crisis.
The bill was introduced in the House by House Armed Services Committee Chairman Howard “Buck” McKeon of California. The Senate version was put forth by Sen. Kelly Ayotte
of New Hampshire. At a press conference where they introduced the bill,
McKeon and Ayotte were joined by a few other anti-job lawmakers
including Sen. John McCain, who authored separate legislation that has since become law and required DoD to cut thousands of civilian jobs.
Contrary to the lawmakers’ false claims, the
federal governments overall workforce, particularly in DoD, consists
mostly of more expensive contractors. Over the last decade, DoD spending
for service contracts has more than doubled, from $72 billion in fiscal
year 2000 to more than $150 billion (not including spending for
overseas contingency operations), while the size of the department’s
civilian workforce has remained essentially unchanged.
“If members of Congress want to reduce DoD, they
should take on their weapons contractors cronies by reforming how we buy
their products, reduce excessive layers of management bureaucracy, cap
at $200,000 annually taxpayer subsidies to contractor compensation, and
substitute reliable and experienced federal employees for ruinously
costly contractors,” AFGE National President J. David Cox Sr. said. “If lawmakers want to end sequestration, they should work together and with the president on revenue-raising offsets.”
AFGE Seeks to Testify on Sequestration’s Effects on Federal Employees: AFGE
has requested to testify on the impact of the irresponsible
across-the-board cuts, known as sequestration, on federal employees
during a Feb. 12 hearing held by the Senate Armed Services Committee.
“The voice of federal employees has been too
infrequently heard in discussions about how the department will adjust
to new geopolitical and budgetary realities, which make significant
downsizing inevitable,” said AFGE National President J. David Cox Sr. in a Feb. 5 letter to committee chairman Carl Levin.
“The result is bad law and bad policy, which impose uniquely arbitrary
constraints on the size and abilities of civilian employees, thus
increasing costs to taxpayers at precisely the time the department must
maximize the value of its precious dollars.”
NP Cox laid out issues he would like to discuss at
the hearing: arbitrary downsizing of the civilian workforce; excessive
spending on service contractors; possible illegal civilian-to-contractor
conversions; extensive furloughs that equal a 20% pay cut for nearly
every single civilian employee; expensive civilian-to-military
conversions; additional arbitrary 5% cut in the civilian workforce; and
excessive taxpayers-funded contractor paychecks.
More Feds Retire in 2012 Than Previous Years:
2012 saw the largest exodus of federal employees from the civil service
in years. As some lawmakers continue to force deep government spending
cuts based on manufactured crises yet resulting in real hardship for
federal employees – pay freezes, hiring freezes, cuts in retirement
benefits – federal employees have had enough and decided to leave the
civil service in droves. At the end of 2012, 106,550 federal employees
put in their retirement papers, compared with 104,810 in 2011 and 84,427
in 2010.
“Attacking federal employees is not the way to recruit and retain the best and brightest,” said AFGE National President J. David Cox Sr. “Yet
some members of Congress continue to scapegoat federal employees, cut
their pay and eliminate their jobs to fund tax breaks for big
corporations. If this is not an outrage, I don’t know what is.”
AFGE Blasts OMB for Targeting Feds and Not Contractors: In
response to a memo issued this week by the Office of Management and
Budget that targets federal employees in the event of sequestration,
AFGE J. David Cox Sr. said OMB has served up a buffet of cuts for
agencies to make to the federal workforce while giving service
contractors a free pass.
“With respect
to civilian workers, it seems that everything is on the table: hiring
freezes, furloughs, terminating temporary or term employees and
encouraging our most seasoned workers to separate or retire,” NP Cox
said. “Yet OMB still hasn't given agencies any useful or explicit
guidance for reducing spending on service contracts. According to this
latest memo, OMB is still examining contracts, grants and other
expenditures to determine where spending reductions might be made.”
Cox said the
Defense Department has already ordered the services and defense agencies
to freeze civilian hiring and curtail a range of spending on
administrative expenses, and AFGE fully expects other federal agencies
to take similar steps. But OMB hasn’t ordered any companion cuts on the
contractor side of the house, such as a freeze on new service contracts,
freezing the exercise of contract options and freezing approval of
contract modifications.
AFGE to Hold Annual Legislative Conference and Your Attendance Is Crucial:
AFGE is holding our annual Legislative Conference on Feb. 10-13 in
Washington, D.C. and your attendance is critical in our fight against
attacks on your pay, benefits and pensions. Besides various workshops on
important workforce issues, we will march on Capitol Hill and hold
lawmakers responsible for their vote to eliminate your job and cut your
pay. It’s your chance to let your representatives know it’s not okay to
scapegoat federal employees.
Also at the Conference:
The Women’s and Fair Practices Departments will be holding an AFGE
Pride meeting for the first time. AFGE Pride is a new national program
that is designed to support the lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender
membership as well as their allies and to educate all of AFGE on the
issues facing this community within AFGE and the Labor Movement. The
AFGE Pride Meeting will be held on Saturday, Feb. 9, from 6-8 pm.
AFGE will again be hosting Y.O.U.N.G. AFGE (Young Organizing Unionists
for the Next Generation) events at the 2013 conference. There will be a
Y.O.U.N.G. meeting held on Sunday, Feb. 10, from 5-7:30 pm. We will
discuss how to effectively build a mentoring program to encourage
political and legislative action among young federal and D.C. government
workers. The meeting will be followed by a happy hour at 8:30 pm.
New Poll Shows Voters Want Higher Taxes for Richest 2%, Big Corporations:
As Congress and the administration are drafting budget proposals that
will affect everyone in America for decades to come, two in three
Americans told pollers they want the richest 2 % and large corporations
to pay more in taxes. The new national poll by Hart Research shows that
66 % of voters want the top 2 % to pay more in taxes while 64 % want big
corporations to pay more. Fully 73 % of voters disapprove of allowing
corporations to not pay any U.S. taxes on profits they earn overseas.
Sixty six percent of voters want to use the tax revenue raised from
closing tax loop holes and limiting deductions for the rich to reduce
the deficit and invest in jobs, roads, bridges, schools. A majority of
voters also reject by 54% to 38% a cuts-only approach for dealing with
the deficit.
“This poll
shows voters are clear about what they want from Congress: Make sure the
next budget agreement raises a lot more tax revenue from wealthy
Americans and big corporations by closing tax loopholes and
special-interest tax breaks. And do not use those savings to lower the
tax rates of the richest 2 percent and big corporations,” said Frank Clemente, campaign manager of Americans for Tax Fairness which commissioned the survey.
6,000 Food Inspectors Could Be Furloughed If Sequestration Hits: Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack
told reporters this week that the across-the-board cuts could force the
USDA to “furlough over 6,000 food inspectors for two to three weeks.”
This would lead to chaos in the meat industry and higher rates of
food-borne illnesses and diseases especially in children, pregnant
women, older people and those with weak immune systems.
USDA is responsible for the safety of domestic and imported meat,
poultry, and egg products. It has about 8,400 employees inspecting 6,300
slaughtered houses and processing plants across the country.
AFGE Local President Testifies before Congress Despite Threat of Retaliation: AFGE Local 2028 President Kathleen Dahl on Tuesday came to Washington to testify
on the Legionaires’ outbreak at a VA medical center
in Pittsburgh even though management had suggested she could ‘get sick’
in order to keep from testifying. The outbreak of the Legionaires’
disease has killed five veterans of the VA Pittsburgh Healthcare System
since 2011, according to the Centers for Disease Control.
Speaking
before the House VA Subcommittee on Oversight and Investigations, Dahl
said she became aware of the outbreak of the disease on Nov. 16 but
quickly realized that management might have learned about the outbreak
much earlier than the union and employees were notified. As a result,
preventive measures such as bottled water for patients and staff, and
masks and other personal protective equipment for plumbing staff were
not provided in a timely manner, violating OSHA requirements and VA
policy. Upon learning of the outbreak, her Local immediately sprang into
high gear to make sure that all employees were notified and encouraged
to get tested by Employee Health and to ensure that management took
steps to protect the plumbing staff and help front line nurses and other
clinicians care for their patients under difficult water restriction
conditions. Local 2028 also met with management a few days later to
raise concerns over the delayed notification to the union and employees
as well as management’s failure to link Legionella with employees
diagnosed with pneumonia or exhibiting other respiratory symptoms.
“I also asked [Chief of Staff] Sonel why management
had not surveyed employees over recent absences and illnesses as
required by OSHA. His reply was troubling and dismissive. He stated that
employees were more likely to be exposed to Legionella in their own
homes,” Dahl told lawmakers.
VISN 4 Network Director Michael Moreland
admitted at the hearing that he knew about the problem in the fall of
2011, which is more than a year before he informed staff about the
outbreak.
Rep. Mike Coffman, chairman of the Subcommittee on Oversight and Investigations, was outraged at VA’s ‘culture of complacency’.
“VA officials admitted under questioning that these deaths were
preventable, and as testimony today from witnesses inside and outside VA
made clear, it was a culture of complacency within VA at multiple
levels that was the culprit,” he said.
Coffman added that the subcommittee had requested the testimonies of VA
officials directly involved in handling the outbreak, but VA refused to
make them available.
AFGE National President J. David Cox Sr. praised Dahl for her courage to bring to Congress’ attention VA’s mismanagement on the issue.
“Our members risk intimidation and retaliation when testifying before
Congress or speaking to the media, but the union is here to protect them
every step of the way,” NP Cox said. AFGE is currently fighting for
whistleblower protections for a post-traumatic stress disorder
specialist at the Wilmington, Del. VA facility who continues to face
intense retaliation for testifying before Congress about mismanagement
and lack of mental health care access for vets.
AFGE 2012 ‘Heck of a job’ Award: The award goes to VA’s VISN 4 Network Director Michael Moreland
who admitted that he knew about the Legionaires’ problem at a VA
hospital in Pittsburgh in the fall of 2011 but did not inform staff or
patients until November 2012. Five veterans have died of the disease.
This Week in Labor History: Feb. 5, 1993 - President Bill Clinton
signs the Family and Medical Leave Act. The law requires most
employers of 50 or more workers to grant up to 12 weeks of unpaid leave
for a family or medical emergency.
This Week’s Tweet: “This was the tweet in question he fired his spokesman over. He deleted it 14 seconds later. http://www.buzzfeed.com/andrewkaczynski/this-is-the-most-embarrassing-a-tweet-a-member-of” ~@BuzzFeedAndrew
(Rep. Raul Labrador of Idaho fired his
spokesman Phil Hardy for tweeting 'Me Likey Broke Girls' from the
congressman’s account during the Super Bowl)
Inside Government: Tune in now
to AFGE’s “Inside Government” for highlights from
the Families USA Health Action 2013 Conference. The show, which
originally aired on Friday, Feb. 8, is now available on demand. Common
Cause President and CEO and former Rep. Bob Edgar of Pennsylvania
discussed efforts to reform the Senate filibuster and the need to
balance the budget, reform the tax code, and invest in infrastructure. Bob Weiner,
former spokesman in the Clinton White House, then analyzed the recent
GDP decline and important provisions in the Affordable Care Act.
Newsweek and The Daily Beast contributor Eleanor Clift also
addressed the future of health care reform and its implementation at the
state level. Lastly, Families USA Executive Director Ron Pollack detailed Medicaid’s expansion under the Affordable Care Act and the role of insurance companies going forward.
 Listen
LIVE on Fridays at 10 a.m. on 1500 AM WFED in the D.C. area or online
at FederalNewsRadio.com. For more information, please visit
InsideGovernmentRadio.com.
Quote of the Week: Defense Secretary Leon Panetta on sequestration:
“If Congress stands back and allows sequester to take place, I think it would really be a shameful and irresponsible act.”
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