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Washington, D.C.—In a short, but pointed advertisement scheduled for tomorrow in the political publication Politico, the Federal-Postal Coalition—including the National Treasury Employees Union (NTEU)—emphasizes to members of Congress that federal employees already have contributed $103 billion in pay and benefit cuts toward economic recovery and deficit reduction.

The full-page ad in the form of an open letter to members of Congress is signed by 25 different organizations, representing millions of federal employees, managers and retirees.

“Federal and postal employees are the only group of Americans who have personally sacrificed to help reduce the deficit,” the ad says. “These dedicated and hard-working civil servants simply cannot afford another round of cuts to their pay or benefits. It is time for others to contribute.”

NTEU President Colleen M. Kelley repeatedly has made a similar argument prior to and during ongoing negotiations regarding the ‘fiscal cliff’ facing the nation at year’s-end.

“These sacrifices began with the two-year pay freeze covering 2011 and 2012, when federal workers contributed $60 billion toward deficit reduction, and continued with another $28 billion from their pay in an extension of the freeze and a delay in a proposed modest pay increase,” Kelley said. What is more, she noted, new federal hires after the end of this year will pay four times more for their pensions than current workers—with no increase in benefits, another $15 billion contribution.

“Still,” Kelley said, “there are those in Congress who are pushing to have federal employees make even greater contributions, even as they seek to protect the millionaires and billionaires who have yet to make any meaningful contribution at all. What has occurred so far is the farthest thing from the shared sacrifice that is so critical to resolving these issues.”

The NTEU leader stressed that federal employees have been without a pay raise for over two years, while facing the same increases in health care, groceries, gas and college tuition as every other American. “A further freeze of federal salaries or an increase in pension contributions—which is the same as a pay cut—for these middle class workers is simply unacceptable,” President Kelley said.

The Federal-Postal Coalition is made up of unions and management organizations representing workers throughout the federal government and the postal service.

NTEU is the largest independent federal union, representing 150,000 employees in 31 agencies and departments.