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Washington, D.C. –It is unjust to permanently raise the pension contributions of federal employees to pay for temporarily extending unemployment compensation benefits for jobless Americans without demanding that the wealthiest in the nation and its corporations pay their fair share, the leader of the National Treasury Employees Union (NTEU) said today. Such a move jeopardizes the effectiveness of the federal retirement system.

“As everyone knows, federal employees already are making a huge contribution to deficit reduction—$60 billion—through a two-year pay freeze,” said NTEU President Colleen M. Kelley. “It is unreasonable to turn to this dedicated workforce yet again while shielding those who are not paying their share.”

The NTEU leader made the remarks in response to the latest reports that agreement on extending the payroll tax holiday along with UC benefits and the so-called Medicare ‘doc’ fix would quadruple the current pension contributions for new federal hires. The contribution required of new employees would increase by 2.3 percent for a total of 3.1 percent beginning in January 2013. This is on top of the 6.2 percent federal employees covered by the Federal Employees Retirement System (FERS) are already required to contribute towards Social Security.

She noted that requiring any group of federal employees to pay a sharply-higher percentage of their pay into FERS “shows a disturbing lack of understanding about the structure of FERS.”

This retirement system, Kelley said, is a three-pronged one, involving a small defined benefit; Social Security, to which FERS-covered employees contribute in the same manner as other working Americans; and an employee’s contributions to the federal Thrift Savings Plan (TSP), comparable to a 401K. Contrary to claims by some in Congress, FERS provides modest, middle-class retirement security to its workers and has no unfunded liability.

“What will happen with this increased contribution,” Kelley said, “is that employees will not be able to contribute fully to their TSP accounts since they would be paying a lot more toward the defined benefit portion of their pension, essentially eliminating one of the three sources of their retirement income.”

The long-term result, she said, is that “we will find over time another generation of workers not fully able to fund their retirement. For our nation, this is short-sighted in the extreme.”

The NTEU leader said this step is especially disappointing in light of the continuing assaults on federal pay and pensions in pending legislation—including an effort in the House version of the transportation bill, which at one point contained language both increasing the pension contribution of current federal employees and eliminating a Social Security supplement promised to those meeting the age and service requirements to retire prior to age 62.

While critical of the reported creation by the payroll tax holiday bill of a two-tier pension system for FERS-covered employees, President Kelley did note the positive and effective work of House Minority Whip Steny Hoyer and Sen. Ben Cardin (D) and Rep. Chris Van Hollen (D), all of Maryland, in their efforts to stand up for federal workers.

Still, she said, “These kinds of attacks clearly are hurting the recruitment and retention efforts of federal agencies and the morale of dedicated and committed workers performing vital functions. Every member of Congress needs to understand the heavy price that is paid when the pay, benefits and rights of federal workers come under constant attack like this—and their contributions to our society denigrated.”

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