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Washington, D.C.—The National Treasury Employees Union (NTEU) has taken sharp issue with a proposal by the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation (FDIC) to reduce by nearly 100 the number of its staff attorneys at its Washington headquarters and its offices in Dallas, TX.

“The FDIC’s claim that there is insufficient work to maintain its current workforce is unsupportable,” said NTEU President Colleen M. Kelley. “FDIC’s legal division stands to lose as much as 25 percent of its present legal staff due to retirements over the next few years. And our economy is in a prolonged recession, which always puts pressure on the nation’s financial institutions—some of which will fail,” she said.

Given these factors, the NTEU president said, “FDIC actually ought to be expanding its legal division, not proposing to contract it.” FDIC is one of the government’s most important financial regulatory agencies.

NTEU represents more than 4,600 FDIC employees in 11 chapters around the country, including more than 1,400 at the agency’s Washington headquarters and nearly 800 in two FDIC regional and division headquarters in Dallas. The agency has proposed eliminating by next spring up to 25 attorneys in Dallas and as many as 70 in Washington.

NTEU members in FDIC have been actively raising the issue with their members of Congress and congressional staff, both by writing letters and in visits to Capitol Hill.

At the same time, Kelley said NTEU has asked the agency for its latest assessment of the condition of the nation’s banks, believing that FDIC is relying on older data in support of its proposal, and that a review of current information will “show clearly that it is both unwise and unnecessary” to reduce the agency’s legal division. FDIC has been “reluctant” to provide the most current data, she said.

NTEU is the largest independent federal union, representing some 150,000 employees in 25 agencies and departments.