Federal Employees

Whether retired or active, Federal public servants and their service to the American people—whether they are Democrats, Republicans, or Independents—deserve respect. As someone who represents almost 60,000 Federal employees in Maryland’s 5th Congressional District and sees the contributions of public servants on a daily basis, they certainly have mine.

The faithful members of NTEU have much to be proud of: protecting our nation’s borders to keep our enemies out; ensuring that our nation’s new financial regulatory laws are implemented so that we don’t have another 2008 Wall Street meltdown; and performing critical scientific research in numerous federal agencies that promote the safety and well-being of all Americans. In short, the vast majority of Americans know that they are serving our nation.

Winter is not officially here yet, but a freeze is falling over the federal workplace.

Millions of Americans are out of work, and many are tightening their belts; Federal employees must be no different. While I appreciate that the President reduced the length of his proposed pay freeze from three to two years, it would have produced significantly more savings had that sacrifice been shared between Federal civilian and military personnel--with a strong exception for the members of our military and civilian employees risking their lives on our behalf in Afghanistan, Iraq, and anywhere else they are serving in harm's way. It would have also added an element of fairness: there has been parity between civilian and military pay raises for 22 of the past 28 years in which raises were authorized, and hundreds of thousands of Federal civilian employees work alongside military employees in the Department of Defense and other agencies. In fact, the first American casualty in Afghanistan was a CIA agent--a federal civilian employee.