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Social Security advocates are planning to protest Thursday at Social Security offices around the county. Thousands of American Federation of Government Employees Social Security employees, along with the Alliance for Retired Americans, the National Committee to Preserve Social Security and Medicare, and the Strengthen Social Security Campaign are protesting recent proposals from Congress that would cut the Social Security Administration's operational budget.

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE: August 1, 2011Debt deal will reduce federal services, jobs WASHINGTON – American Federation of Government Employees National President John Gage today issued the following statement in response to the debt limit deal announced Sunday by Congressional leaders and the White House:“The manufactured debt crisis is over for now, but the real crisis looms larger than ever. More than 14 million Americans have lost their jobs, and this debt deal does nothing to get them back to work. In fact, these massive spending cuts will undermine our slow economic growth. As a result, more Americans will find it...

Airport screeners around the county have chosen the nation’s largest federal employee union to represent them in collective bargaining talks with the government, federal officials announced Thursday. The American Federation of Government Employees won a close runoff vote to represent about 44,000 employees at the Transportation Security Administration in the largest union election for federal workers in history. ... Republicans have widely criticized the decision to grant collective bargaining rights to airport screeners, arguing the move would threaten the government’s ability to respond quickly during emergencies. The Bush administration refused repeated requests to grant union rights to workers at the...

Well, the vote is in, and the TSA has chosen the AFL-CIO, the largest federal employee union in the country, to represent them in collective bargaining negotiations with the government. The union will represent a total of 44,000 workers at the Transportation Security Administration. The Blaze/AP reports: Federal officials tallying the votes say AFGE, [a branch of the AFL-CIO], received 8,903 votes, while National Treasury Employees Union got 8,447 votes. The runoff was held after neither union received more than 50 percent of votes during the first election earlier this year. The vote came after TSA head John Pistole agreed...

With time running out for congressional leaders to reach a budget deal, the country's biggest federal workers union is taking the Obama administration to court for what it called a failure to explain how federal programs and services would be affected if there's a government shutdown. The American Federation of Government Employees announced Tuesday that it filed a lawsuit in federal court last week seeking details on the shutdown plans of federal agencies. The union's national president, John Gage, said he filed the lawsuit after the White House Office of Management and Budget failed to respond to a Freedom of...

John Gage, President of the American Federation of Government Employees, said people who want to cut government spending are “mentally retarded.” Gage made these statements during a Feb. 8 march on Washington. Take a listen for yourself.

Airline passengers aren’t the only ones complaining about the Transportation Security Administration’s new enhanced security procedures. Many TSA employees aren’t too happy, either. The American Federation of Government Employees (AFGE), the union that represents TSA workers, is urging the TSA to do more to protect its employees from abuse from airline passengers angry over the new security methods. The union reports that some members “have reported instances in which passengers have become angry, belligerent and even physical with TSOs (transportation security officers). In Indianapolis, for example, a TSO was punched by a passenger who didn’t like the new screening process,”...

The American Federation of Government Employees (AFGE), the union that represents TSA workers, is urging the TSA to do more to protect its employees from abuse from airline passengers angry over the new security methods.

A federal judge has sentenced a former New Mexico union president to four months in prison and three years of supervised probation in a scheme to defraud the union. U.S. District Judge William Johnson sentenced 58-year-old Fidel Garza on Tuesday. Garza was president of the American Federation of Government Employees, AFL-CIO Local Union 2063, from 2000 through August 2004. He was accused of using union debit cards to withdraw membership funds for his personal use.

The American Federation of Government Employees has launched a new ad targeting Republicans, or ‘teabaggers’, depicted in a cheering crowd with the faces of House Minority Leader John Boehner, House Minority Whip Eric Cantor, Rep. Michelle Bachmann, Nevada Senate candidate Sharron Angle, and RNC Chairman Michael Steele- with a sign that reads “Tea Baggers Section.”

As President Obama's poll numbers continue to slide, congressional Democrats faced with increasingly tough re-election contests are turning to their best remaining friend, Big Labor, for help. Tuesday's enactment of a $26 billion "jobs bill" was carefully tailored to please public-sector unions, especially those representing teachers. The House majority hopes labor will reciprocate by delivering votes in the fall. The latest federal cash infusion will help states avoid making tough budgetary decisions that might endanger the obscene salary and pension plans offered to teachers and bureaucrats at the state and local level. Last year, for example, the California Department of...

For the last several months, we have seen Big Labor pull every string and work every avenue to force unionization on workers. Whether it’s using the National Mediation Board (NMB) to change rules that have been in place for generations governing the airline and railroad industries, stacking the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) with radical nominees who will put forward the Employee ‘Forced’ Choice Act via administrative action, or whether its union bosses pushing forward with efforts to represent airport screeners, one thread runs throughout: an unquenchable thirst for money and power on the part of Big Labor bosses. The...

WASHINGTON - Barack Obama all but erased Hillary Rodham Clinton's once-imposing lead among national convention superdelegates on Friday and won fresh labor backing as elements of the Democratic Party began coalescing around the Illinois senator for the fall campaign.... The developments left the former first lady with 271.5 superdelegates, to 271 for Obama. Little more than four months ago, on the eve of the primary season, she held a lead of 169-63....

The largest federal employee union will work to defeat President Bush in November after endorsing presumptive Democratic nominee John F. Kerry last week. ... Kerry, who has voted with the AFGE 88 percent of the time during his Senate career, also opposes private accounts in Social Security, favors spending more on veterans' health care and would strengthen Medicare and collective bargaining rights, said John Gage, the AFGE president. ... Gage said 5,000 AFGE members have volunteered to work on behalf of the Kerry campaign. The union plans to focus on states whose electoral votes appear to be up for grabs,...

Statement from the American Federation of Government Employees on the Bush Immigration Amnesty Plan1/16/04 9:06:00 AM To: National Desk Contact: Enid Doggett of the American Federation of Government Employees, 202-639-6419WASHINGTON, Jan. 16 /U.S. Newswire/ -- Following is a statement from the American Federation of Government Employees on the Bush Immigration Amnesty Plan:"The American Federation of Government Employees (AFGE) condemns President Bush's immigration plan as a proposal that will overtly exploit some of the poorest workers in America and grant amnesty for millions of people who have illegally entered the country. "The plan does nothing to strengthen protections for wages, benefits...

'National Security' Part Of Bush Plan To Gut Civil Services POSTED: 4:19 p.m. EDT September 3, 2003 The Bush administration is evoking "national security" as a powerful weapon to accomplish its twin goals of privatizing thousands of federal jobs and taking a whack at government unions. The administration's sales pitch is to raise the specter of terrorism and 9-11 -- a surefire way to scare Congress into backing plans to gut the Civil Service system. Congress passed the Civil Service Act in 1883 to end the spoils system, which based federal employment on nepotism and cronyism. The bad old days...