"On behalf of our more than 12,000 dues-paying members, the entire 40,000 Transportation Security Officers, 262,000 AFGE members, and 13 million AFL-CIO union members, I was very pleased to sit down with Administrator Pistole and share with him the role that collective bargaining plays in stabilizing the federal workplace," President Gage said. "AFGE's long history of representing federal employees in a variety of agencies and law enforcement jobs is unprecedented. I truly hope that our meeting has helped the administrator recognize how much value is added to workplace efficiency and stability when the employees have true input into the process."

President Gage emphasized the need for due process as it is the foundation for stability that allows employees to do their jobs. He also stressed the urgent need for collective bargaining rights for the entire TSA workforce. As he promised the Senate in his confirmation hearings, Pistole is conducting animpact assessment of how bargaining rights would impact the agency?s ability to perform its mission.

"I encouraged Pistole to look closely at the other areas in the government - Bureau of Prisons, DOD police and firefighters and Border Patrol Officers - where collective bargaining has been in place for decades," President Gage said. "There is simply no evidence to support the notion that collective bargaining has a negative impact on national security. When the World Trade Center and the Pentagon were attacked, it was unionized firefighters and police officers who rushed into harm's way to rescue as many people as they could. These brave public servants did not pause or hesitate. They did not consult their union contract. They did not give the first thought to their own health or safety. They did their jobs and they did so with pride and professionalism. As the union of choice for TSOs across the country, AFGE looks forward to many more productive meetings with Administrator Pistole."

AFGE has represented the TSA workforce since the agency was created in 2001. The union currently has more than 12,000 dues-paying TSA members in 38 union Locals nationwide. AFGE is the only AFL-CIO affiliated union that represents TSOs.

“The warden’s refusal to lock down FCI – Ray Brook in the wake of this violence is nothing more than a dismissal of reality,” said CPL President Bryan Lowry. “Management continues to turn a blind eye toward dangerous situations that put correctional officers, inmates, and the surrounding communities at risk, while categorizing each instance as an isolated incident. The union believes this is management’s attempt to lessen the seriousness of each occurrence.”

Members of the Council of Prison Locals have testified on Capitol Hill regarding the dangers of working in understaffed and underfunded federal prisons. The union has repeatedly asked for additional staff and the proper use of appropriated funds to ensure the safety and security of the nation’s federal prison system.

Specifically, CPL wants BOP to:

• Fully staff and fund its prisons – Right now the inmate-to-staff ratio is 150:1 on most correctional assignments and too often can be as high as 300:1. Correctional officers are unarmed inside the facility.

• Responsibly issue stab-resistant vests to correctional officers – Assaults on officers with homemade weapons have spiked in recent years.

• Issue pepper spray to correctional staff – This less lethal weaponry would provide correctional officers the ability to protect themselves when violent outbreaks occur, and more easily restore order to the facility.

• Continue the Federal Prison Industries (FPI) program – FPI recently announced it would eliminate factories at nine facilities, downsize operations at three additional locations, and reduce personnel at eight more locations throughout the country – a move that union officials say could lead to potential violence at facilities with hundreds of idle inmates.

The FPI prison inmate work program is an important management tool that federal correctional officers and staff use to deal with the huge increase in the BOP prison inmate population. It helps keep 16,115 prison inmates, down from 23,152 two years ago, productively occupied in labor-intensive activities, thereby reducing inmate idleness and the violence associated with that idleness. It also provides strong incentives to encourage good inmate behavior, as those who want to work in FPI factories must maintain a record of good behavior and must have completed high school or be making steady progress toward a General Education Degree (GED).

“The days of ‘doing more with less’ must end,” added Lowry. “If management continues to operate the BOP under its current conditions – understaffed, overcrowded, and with an increasingly violent inmate population – more tragic incidents are sure to follow.”

For more information on assaults throughout the BOP, go to www.cpl33.info

(Washington) - The American Federation of Government Employees, which represents 600,000 federal and District of Columbia public employees, today, launched an ad campaign targeting D.C.’s mayor.

In the “We Have a Problem with Our Boss,” 60 second radio spot, the public employee union details attacks against city employees brought forth by the mayor, including eliminating the Department of Public Recreation’s child care services agency.

The ad also chastises the mayor for a failure to nominate members to the Public Employee Review Board, which resolves disputes between public employees and the city. This year the mayor attempted to effectively eliminate the agency in his proposed budget.

“Public employees in the District of Columbia are in a fight to protect their jobs, their most basic civil service protections, and their dignity,” said Dwight Bowman, AFGE 14th district national vice-president, which represents federal and D.C. employees in Washington Metropolitan area. “This radio campaign is an articulation of those concerns.”

In addition to the radio ad, AFGE has launched a viral campaign through several YouTube videos, called “Life Sure is Good for the Teddy Bears.” In the videos, the union connects the mayor’s decision to close free daycare for city residents and the funneling of multi-million dollar contracts to his fraternity brothers through the Department of Parks and Recreation, without D.C. City Council approval.

“The mayor and his administration have consistently shown themselves to favor the wealthy and well connected, while also promoting policies that disadvantage working families across the District of Columbia,” said Bowman.

(WASHINGTON)—The American Federation of Government Employees—the largest union within the Department of Homeland Security—today applauded final passage of the Southwest Border Security Bill, which included measures to add a combined 1,200 agents at Border Patrol and Immigration and Customs Enforcement.

“AFGE has long argued for more staffing and funding at both Border Patrol and Immigration and Customs Enforcement,” AFGE National President John Gage said. “We applaud members of Congress for working so quickly at getting this bill put through, and President Obama for quickly signing it into law.”

The bill will add 1,000 Border Patrol agents, 200 special agents, investigators and intelligence analysts at ICE, and additional funding throughout the agency.

“It is essential for every DHS agency to have the staffing and funded needed to carry out their mission of securing this nation,” Gage added. “AFGE is glad that Border Patrol and ICE will get some relief in this sense, and are encouraged by the speed in which the bill was carried through.”

In an attempt to save money and reduce excessive reliance on expensive service contractors, Gates last year said he would cut the number of service support contractors by 33,000 during the next five years and replace them with federal employees. But on Monday, Gates said these cut contractor positions will not be replaced.

Gates said he was not satisfied with how much money DoD has saved through insourcing during the first year of implementation. However, because the department has not yet conducted a full inventory of its contractor workforce and integrated those results into the budget process, as required by law, it is unable to determine the costs and savings from insourcing.

Savings from insourcing are more than offset by new service support contracts. DoD says it spent 39 percent of its total workforce budget on service support and advisory contractors in 2009, up from 26 percent in 2000.

“The department’s budget is in critical condition because of decades of excessive privatization,” said AFGE National President John Gage. “Surely, we should not give up on the promising but short-lived insourcing effort after just one year.”

Gage said he will be seeking clarification from the Defense Department about its insourcing plans, as well as announced plans to eliminate three Defense agencies and freeze hiring for most jobs.

AFGE will work with Congress and the department to ensure that DoD continues to be able to hire civilian employees to perform critical and sensitive functions that never should have been outsourced, as well as functions that can be performed more efficiently in-house, he said.