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Washington, D.C.—The leader of the nation’s largest independent union of federal employees today called on members of the congressional budget conference committee to end sequestration, provide adequate funding for federal agencies and prevent further cuts to federal worker and retiree compensation. The committee is charged with coming up with a plan by Dec. 13.

In a letter to conferees, President Colleen M. Kelley of the National Treasury Employees Union (NTEU) described the anxiety federal employees feel about continuing budget crises. In addition to direct deficit reductions of $114 billion, she said, federal employees also have faced pay cuts from unpaid furlough days due to sequestration.

“Their workloads have increased due to hiring freezes, and they just went through a morale-killing 16-day government shutdown that delayed paychecks, even for those essential employees who were required to work without knowing when they would get paid,” she wrote. “They are extremely anxious about whether they will be shut out of work again on January 15, if Congress again misses its funding deadline.”

Separately, as part of the Federal-Postal Coalition—a group representing frontline federal and postal employees, managers and retirees—NTEU joined in a strongly-worded letter to the leaders of the budget conference committee calling for an end to sequestration.

“Our country’s economic viability stands to further suffer with the continuation of sequestration into fiscal 2014,” the letter said; it was directed to conference committee co-chairs, Sen. Patty Murray (D-Wash.) and Rep. Paul Ryan (R-Wis.)

It added that its member organizations are “unwaveringly opposed to further sacrifices from federal employees to undo the congressionally-created crisis of sequestration. Cutting federal employee pay though increased retirement contributions must not be a topic for further discussions to resolve these crises. The federal community has given its fair share already.”

The letter noted, as has President Kelley on multiple occasions, that federal workers over the past three years have contributed more than $114 billion over 10 years toward deficit reduction.

While that figure does include federal employee contributions stemming from a three-year pay freeze and a 2.3 percent increase in retirement contributions from newly-hired federal workers, it does not include the loss in paychecks from furloughs as a result of the sequester in fiscal 2013.

“Many worked unfalteringly for weeks without guaranteed, timely pay due to the government shutdown,” the Coalition wrote. ‘They shouldn’t be continually persecuted while they are trying to do

their jobs to serve and protect U.S. citizens. Enough is enough.”

Meanwhile, in her letter to House and Senate budget conferees, President Kelley emphasized that the across-the-board sequestration cuts that took effect last March “were devastating to agency budgets that were already inadequate to the tasks they were expected to accomplish.”

The cuts, totaling $85 billion for just a portion of fiscal 2013 meant that most agencies had to implement hiring freezes, slash training and pare back on services to taxpayers, Kelley said. “Many agencies also were forced to implement unpaid furlough days, with some, like the Internal Revenue Service, completely shutting their doors for several days.”

She warned that if sequestration funding remains in place—and it is scheduled to run until 2021—it is more than likely that more unpaid furlough days and the resulting loss of government services will occur this year and beyond.

“Food inspection, border security, air and water quality and the timeliness of tax refunds will all be negatively affected,” she wrote. “These are services the American people expect the federal government to deliver.”

In calling for fiscal 2014 discretionary spending levels to be raised to reflect the Senate-passed budget resolution, President Kelley said that “while those levels will still be extremely low, they will at least prevent the disastrous loss of services that will come from leaving sequester-level funding in place.”

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