Lawmakers are putting pressure on DOD to balance its civilan workforce cuts with comparable cuts in its contracting workforce.
A bill that would require federal employees to contribute an added 5 percent of salary to their pensions advanced late last month in the House of Representatives.
A union said it asked the Office of Special Counsel to investigate alleged retaliation against one of its members who testified before the Senate in November 2011 to reveal alleged understaffing and improper accounting measures related to the treatment of veterans for post-traumatic stress disorder.
More than 100 House members signed a letter to Defense Secretary Leon Panetta asking him to abandon the plan to reduce the Defense Department’s civilian workforce to fiscal 2010 levels.
House Republicans sounded a familiar note last week when they released details of a fiscal 2013 budget which, among other things, proposes to freeze federal civilian pay for another three years, cut the federal workforce, and trim back federal employee benefits.
Some of the most political people I have ever known—including froth-at-the-mouth liberals and die-hard conservatives—have worked for the media. But most seem to keep it to themselves. At least they don’t let it show, which is OK.
The American Federation of Government Employees said on March 1 that the union and the Social Security Administration have reached a “conceptual agreement” on the terms of a new national contract.
One federal employee union has created a website it says will “set the record straight” when lawmakers or political candidates take aim at the federal workforce.
President Obama’s fiscal 2013 budget proposal, although it would end the two-year pay freeze and give feds a modest 0.5 percent pay raise, also includes proposals to raise feds’ contributions to their retirements by 1.2 percent over three years, and would do away with the Federal Employees Retirement System supplement for new employees.
While the U.S. Postal Service reported improved shipping revenues during the holiday season, the increase failed to put much of a dent in losses in the first quarter of fiscal 2012.