AFGE Council 220 President Jessica LaPointe traveled from Wisconsin last week and delivered a stark message on Capitol Hill about the future of the Social Security Administration.
“The SSA workforce is collapsing, morale is at an all-time low, and management is silencing the union,” LaPointe said during a June 10 press conference outside the U.S. Capitol that was coordinated by Democrats on the U.S. House Ways and Means Committee.
AFGE Council 220 is the exclusive representative of about 25,000 bargaining unit employees at SSA who work in field offices, teleservice centers, workload support unis, and other components in every state and U.S. territory.
The press conference occurred following Social Security Commissioner Frank Bisignano’s testimony before the U.S. House Ways and Means Subcommittees on Social Security and Work & Welfare.
While Bisignano told lawmakers that the agency’s performance is improving across the board, LaPointe painted a different story in a congressional statement submitted for the record ahead of the hearing.
Social Security is facing a “set of interconnected crises that are undermining Social Security’s ability to deliver the benefits the American people have earned,” LaPointe said in her statement.
“The core message of this statement is this: Social Security’s service delivery crisis is not a program solvency issue. It is a staffing and resource issue. The Agency has lost thousands of employees, reaching a 59-year staffing low. Record backlogs, field office closures, reassignments, and deteriorating service are the direct result of chronic underfunding and accelerated workforce reductions.
“The path forward requires Congress to appropriate adequate funding dedicated to hire, train, and retain the workforce necessary to deliver the benefits Americans have earned — and to exercise oversight over an Agency that is increasingly turning to artificial intelligence, automated adjudication, and occupancy data as substitutes for the human workforce the public needs.”
The day before the congressional hearing, Social Security management notified AFGE that it was slashing the time our top SSA union officers can spend on representational work under what’s known as official time. Effectively immediately, 27 union officers were told they could spend no more than 50% of their time on representational work – a direct violation of our ratified contract, which covers about 42,000 employees represented by AFGE Councils 220 (field offices), 215 (hearings and appeals), 109 (payment centers), and 224 (quality review) and AFGE Locals 1923 (headquarters) and 2809 (operations center).
AFGE’s SSA General Committee issued a statement in response to the agency’s action, highlighting the value of official time for both workers and the public and the hypocrisy of using staffing cuts initiated by the agency to justify the cuts.
“AFGE leaders at SSA use that time to meet with agency leadership to discuss and, when necessary, bargain over important matters impacting workers and the public. We bring the voice and insights of SSA’s dedicated workforce to the forefront on issues such as staffing cuts, office closures, and how to effectively get the people’s work done. We identify problems and pitfalls and propose common sense solutions to benefit all,” the statement said.
“SSA’s claims these twenty-seven (27) people are suddenly necessary to address ‘significant service delivery demands’ across the agency, even though it willingly pushed out 7,000 experienced employees in 2025, are patently absurd. The remedy to SSA’s public service crisis is full funding and staffing and not trying to silence the voice of union leaders working every day to improve public service and working conditions. We will not be silenced.
“This is yet another act of union-busting by this administration. We demand that SSA rescind its illegal order and honor its contractual obligations.”
Also on June 9, Social Security trustees issued a report warning that that the Social Security trust fund will be depleted by 2032 – just six years from now – unless Congress acts to shore up the retirement program.
“For the 60% of Americans who rely on Social Security as their primary source of retirement and disability income, that is not an inconvenience. It is the difference between paying rent and feeding their families or not,” LaPointe said during the press conference.
She called on Congress to pass legislation introduced by Rep. John Larson of Connecticut that would safeguard SSA for current and future generations.
“He has a real plan. Congress just has to act on it,” LaPointe said. “But here’s the thing – this is why I’m here. You cannot save Social Security without protecting the people who deliver it and their union's ability to advocate for safe and effective working conditions.”
