Hundreds of AFGE members will gather in Washington next month for our annual legislative conference to discuss our union’s legislative priorities, visit members of Congress to make our goals a reality, and build solidarity as government employees.
This year’s legislative conference will be held on March 27-30. The legislative conference is a great way to meet other AFGE activists, get inspired, and learn from each other as we work together to shape our future in 2022 and beyond.
If you haven’t registered, you can do it here.
Here’s a highlight of what we hope to accomplish in 2022:
We’re pushing for a 5.1% pay adjustment as a partial offset of general inflation, higher healthcare premiums, and a decade of pay freezes and subpar raises. The purchasing power of federal employee pay is 9.5% lower
than in 2011. Please cosponsor the FAIR Act (H.R. 6398 / S. 3518).
We need to ensure all federal employees have full collective bargaining rights, especially TSA employees and Title 38 employees at the Department of Veterans Affairs. No group of federal employees should be singled out for inferior rights or pay. Please cosponsor the Rights for the TSA Workforce Act (H.R. 903 / S. 1856).
Defense readiness, veterans’ healthcare, prison safety and many other important programs are harmed by using continuing resolutions based on a previous year’s budget. Threatening government shutdowns and debt defaults should be eliminated as Congressional tactics. Federal agencies need Congress to provide regular full-year appropriations so that they can carry out their missions as the law intends.
Supporting working families is important, which is why we endorse paid family leave for all Americans, including federal workers. We urge passage of legislation that guarantees 12 weeks of paid leave for all purposes under the Family and Medical Leave Act. We also support fully staffing federal agencies, especially chronically understaffed agencies in law enforcement under the Departments of Justice and Homeland Security and at the Department of Veterans Affairs.
AFGE supports legislation that restores voting protections and ensures the integrity of elections, no matter what kind of voter suppression or election subversion is passed by state legislatures. Every voter must have access to the ballot box and states must be prevented from enacting harsh limits on early and mail-in voting. People of color, employees with irregular work schedules, and people with disabilities or family obligations are disenfranchised when early voting and mail-in voting are restricted.
The integrity of the non-political civil service is undermined when Congress allows agency managers to dispense with competitive service hiring, including consideration of veterans’ preference. Congress needs to place strict limits on “excepted service” and “direct hire” authorities that open the door to politicization and corruption of the civil service.
We hope you’re ready to take back our future – because we are!
Click here to register for AFGE’s 2022 Legislative Conference.
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