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Washington, D.C.—The change that has come to America is welcome news, and with so much to be done, the federal workforce is positioned to influence and shape their country’s future in positive ways perhaps as never before, the leader of the nation’s largest independent union of federal employees today told union leaders from across the federal government and from around the country.

Speaking at the opening session of the annual Legislative Conference of the National Treasury Employees Union (NTEU), President Colleen M. Kelley called on the more than 350 assembled NTEU members to seize the moment to shape the future of the country.

“You have unlocked the doors and opened the windows to change, and now you and the federal employees we represent will be the ones who deliver that change for America,” President Kelley said. She added: “Federal employees sent a man to the moon, advanced human rights, led innovations in science, breakthroughs in medicine and revolutions in technology. This is our moment. Let’s get to work.”

The NTEU leader was joined at the conference’s opening session by Rep. Edolphus Towns (D-N.Y.), new chairman of the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee. A long-time supporter of federal employees, Rep. Towns told the NTEU members that federal employees “provide a dedicated face and role model” to their fellow Americans, and said “this Congress has your interests in mind.”

The NTEU members will be in Washington through Thursday participating in Capitol Hill meetings with senators and House members from their states and districts, and providing to them information on NTEU’s priority legislative issues for 2009. These include:

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Adequate funding for federal agencies so employees have the tools and resources they need to serve the public;

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A limit on the contracting out of federal jobs and returning government work into the hands of federal employees;

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Ensuring full collective bargaining rights to employees for the Transportation Security Administration and restoration of such rights to those in the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives, from whom they were stripped at virtually the last moment by the previous administration;

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Making health insurance more accessible and affordable for federal families;

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Parity in pay between federal employees and their brothers and sisters in the military;

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Addressing a range of federal retiree issues; and

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A return to labor-management partnership so workplace issues can be solved at the front lines through cooperative efforts aimed at making agencies successful.

The NTEU president also called on all NTEU members to stand in solidarity with employees in NTEU-represented financial regulatory agencies “as we fight for more resources and more authority for these agencies.”

And just as importantly, she said, “we must make the point that new agency leadership needs to refocus these agencies on their core missions that served our country so well” before being sidetracked in the last administration by political agendas.

President Kelley made a point of introducing leaders from new NTEU chapters among employees of the Transportation Security Administration (TSA), where NTEU is leading the fight for full collective bargaining rights.

“I can’t thank you enough for being the face of your fellow employees,” she said, adding that “everyone here stands with you” in the effort to bring meaningful improvements to the TSA workplace. NTEU represents thousands of TSA employees at eight of the nation’s busiest airports, and is engaged in an aggressive organizing effort at airports nationwide.

More broadly, President Kelley said, “We are a nation in an economic freefall, and the stakes have never been higher.” Still, she said, she is confident in the ability of the federal workforce “to rescue our country and restore the public’s faith in our institutions.”

NTEU’s role, she told them, “is to convince the administration and Congress to invest in the workforce, and that those investments will pay big dividends for our country.”

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