"The bravest are surely those who have the clearest vision
of what is before them, glory and danger alike,
and yet notwithstanding, go out to meet it."~Thucydides
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Posted on 05/12/2014 7:57:38 PM PDT by mdittmar
With the Allied victory in Europe and Japan complete and the greatest war the world had ever seen coming to a close, AFGE continued to secure major victories of its own.
By taking our message to the streets, airwaves, and halls of Congress, AFGE achieved groundbreaking advances for federal workers as it embarked on a decades-long march toward a membership 300,000 strong. Starting in 1946, AFGE won uniformity in salary increases and extended benefits to an additional half-million federal workers. In doing so we secured a 14 percent wage increase for federal workers.
Into the 1950’s AFGE continued to break new ground for federal employees around the country. AFGE increased travel allowances, improved the Retirement Act, secured a 7.5 percent pay raise for all employees and a 10 percent raise for white-collar employees. In 1955 AFGE put into effect its first comprehensive health program for members that rivaled private health care programs and was a benchmark for federal workers throughout government.
As AFGE’s voice grew stronger, there was still one fundamental piece missing from our ability to represent federal employees: collective bargaining. In fact, it would not be until 1961 that AFGE was able to enjoy the same rights as our private sector union counterparts. All of that changed when President Kennedy signed Executive Order 10988, which granted AFGE national recognition for its employees and the right to bargain collectively. This, along with President Kennedy’s provision for automatic dues deduction from paychecks, unleashed a large outburst of demand for union representation. In the ensuing years, AFGE membership skyrocketed from 71,000 in 1961 to 301,000 in 1970.
As AFGE’s membership rocketed to new heights, the union continued to pave the way for stronger employee representation and workplace rights. In 1962, AFGE leaders spearheaded the creation of the AFGE Council of Veterans Administration Locals. The 1966 collective bargaining agreement between AFGE and the Dept. of Labor would become a model for AFGE federal government contracts for decades to come. In 1969 AFGE members lobbied for and won improved retirement benefits that included a formula based on the three highest consecutive years of service, including sick leave. But our success only snowballed from there.
In 1978 AFGE won one of our greatest victories ever, the passage of the Civil Service Reform Act (CSRA), which expanded and solidified collective bargaining rights and opened the courts for contract enforcement. It was this act, in fact, protected members three years later when Ronald Reagan tried to break the federal labor movement.
With hard-won, newfound rights, AFGE would go on to create its national bargaining councils, growing the number of national agreements from 5 to 34 by the end of the 1980’s. It was the these forty years – 1945 through 1985 – that molded AFGE into a loose association of concerned federal employees into the largest and most influential federal union in the nation.
Tune in next week for Part III of our four part series AFGE: A History of Progress.
Below are some of the agencies we represent. The list is not comprehensive and it only serves to showcase some of the work we do for our members. There are thousands of officers and employees all around the country constantly working for our members and any work-related issues, it would be both impossible and impractical to list all of their daily efforts and the extraordinary work they do in a couple of pages.
Federal employees should never have been allowed to unionize.
bump
Allowing the government to unionize against the American people, was insanity.
“”In 1962, President John F. Kennedy signed Executive Order 10988, which permitted collective bargaining by federal employees. Widely seen as a gift to George Meany, the AFL-CIO head who helped Kennedy win the White House, the executive order was also a gift to government unions, both because it widened federal membership and because it signaled national approval of unions for state and local employees.””
Yep. Unionize and give up civil service protection. Keep civil service protections and no unions. They need to pick one or the other and not take both. There are way too many beaks double dipping for what few of us taxpayers remain.
According to the article,"Ronald Reagan tried to break the federal labor movement",guess beating Reagan is a badge of honor for Federal Government employees.
From your posting history, it is clear that you are not a fan of these scum. Ya might want to make that clearer on this thread though. /friendly advice
O.K.,I don’t like unions,they suck!
FDR was against unionization of federal employees.
All Government employees should realize that the process of collective bargaining, as usually understood, cannot be transplanted into the public service.
Franklin Delano Roosevelt
Federal employees should never have been allowed to unionize.
Much less to have been handed collective bargaining rights.
So we the people paying the bills are being lobbied against, without representation, by those we are paying for “government service”. Not only that, but at our expense the government is extracting cash from paychecks, to further provide the means for our servants to increase their control over those who ought to be in control but are not.
its just done....once you give so many people so much money and benefits there is no turning back...
the only happy thought is that this system will explode.....
for me, I just want to get off the tax grid so I don't have to pay these people anymore....
Public service unions are a Demonazi thing-were once illegal- and they should be still.
http://www.americanthinker.com/2013/10/public_sector_unions_must_be_abolished.html
Once you politicize the civil service, you have destroyed the Republic. It is very frightening given the power and scope of government.
Once you politicize the civil service, you have destroyed the Republic.
The really distubing part of the quote, involves the “people” in question. The civil sevice is people, who have been co-opted willingly at the expense of the Republic, and it’s people. One would think, there are not that many of them to sustain such a power play. Sort of like the teachers, during the Capitol power play in WI. Lots of noise and trash talk, but when it came to real power, to change an election, zip, zero, nada.
I’ll admit the election was closer than it should have been, and there are more Federal Civil Service than WI teachers union thugs. Where do we go from here. In WI there was an executive with ballocks, but at the Federal level...
The problem is that the public employee bureaucracies are not elected. They hold the real reins of power in the day to day implementation of the laws. They can delay and hinder the implementation of change even if the political appointees in charge want to reverse or change course.
As someone who worked for the federal government for 36 years, the bureaucrats can outlast their political "betters." What is changing now is that the bureaucrats have chosen sides for the Democrats and against the Reps. When the Reps are in charge, they can sabotage change efforts and undermine the Rep politicians by selectively leaking information or manipulating data. And they can aid the Dems similarly. It was no coincidence that the Department of Labor unemployment numbers went down unexpectedly just before the 2012 election.
The Obama administration has placed within the various agencies small groups of political commissars who can keep an eye on what is happening and shape the information coming out of them. We have every right to be skeptical of government data.
As government grows larger, so does the influence of the unelected government bureaucrat, who is almost impossible to fire.
Don't remember who said it, when or the other circumstances surrounding it. But it is more true today than it was then.
"The bravest are surely those who have the clearest vision
of what is before them, glory and danger alike,
and yet notwithstanding, go out to meet it."~Thucydides
Please support Free Republic
click the pic
Sounds good. How does that work?
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