Get the bulletin board-ready story, here.
Earlier this month, NFFE-IAM members from Locals across the country gathered in Washington, DC for a week to meet with members of Congress to discuss the issues important to federal employees at the 2016 IAM Legislative Conference. Issues NFFE-IAM members advocated for included giving federal employees a real pay adjustment, providing federal employees paid parental leave, and supporting a bill to repeal recent pension cuts made to new hires.
For this one week a year, NFFE-IAM members gather for a week of rousing speeches by key leaders in Congress and labor, to discuss legislative strategies and spend time on Capitol Hill lobbying their elected officials. Over the years, hundreds of NFFE-IAM representatives, from Alaska to Puerto Rico and everywhere in between, have made the trip to Washington, DC to talk issues face-to-face with their representatives in Congress.
Every year, federal employees are forced to endure increasingly anti-worker legislation that cuts into the bottom line of their family’s budget. Legislative Conference is a yearly coordinated effort to speak up for America’s dedicated civil servants. And this year’s attendance of Legislative Conference demonstrated that the fight is alive and well with NFFE-IAM members, and that they will not take these baseless attacks lying down. Standing shoulder-to-shoulder with IAM brothers and sisters, NFFE-IAM members educated members of Congress on the real cost of treating federal employees like an ATM to balance the federal budget. For too long, Congress has attempted to balance the federal budget on the back of the federal workforce, but NFFE-IAM, with their Union brothers and sisters, stood up and said “enough is enough.”
Legislative Conference is about strength in numbers. It is about Union brothers and sisters coming together from across the country and standing up to the powerful Washington special interests. It is about protecting a middle class economy that is being squeezed more and more each day.
“Attendance at this year’s Legislative Conference was great,” said NFFE National President William R. Dougan. “With the Presidential election right around the corner and the political makeup of the House of Representatives and Senate hanging in the balance, 2016 is a critically important election year for federal employees. It could mean the difference between deeper pension cuts or a real pay adjustment that reflects the years of frozen pay federal employees have been forced to endure. We need to take this energy into the fall elections and make sure we support the candidates that support our pocketbooks.”
Not able to attend Legislative Conference this year? Be sure to catch the recap video from the Machinists News Network for all of the highlights. And be on the lookout for registration for next year’s Legislative Conference in Winter 2017—the fight cannot be won without you.
NFFE’s delegation to the 2016 IAM Legislative Conference