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Washington, D.C.—In the 21st Century, to ensure a well-functioning government, federal employees need Congress to give them the necessary resources to do their jobs and to treat them with respect, the head of the National Treasury Employees Union (NTEU) said today.

Instead, Congress shut down the government in 2013, imposed draconian budget cuts under sequestration and tries again and again to cut federal pay and benefits, NTEU National President Colleen M. Kelley said in a statement to the Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Subcommittee on Regulatory Affairs and Federal Management.

Federal employees are committed to serving the public and helping their agencies fulfill their missions, but Congress is standing in their way, she said.

“Inadequate funding and overall uncertainty with the funding process has created an environment that is making it increasingly difficult for agencies and workers to accomplish both their missions and day-to-day tasks,” President Kelley wrote to the subcommittee.

“The key items needed to turn things around are proper funding and respect for the workforce,” she said. “The first years of this new century have not been kind to the civil service, and our nation’s leaders should take heed that in the 21st Century—as in the last century—the American people continue to want a responsive government that has the capacity to deliver.”

In the past several years, federal employees have been left in an unwelcome state of limbo because of uncertain funding that leaves them unable to execute key programs and decisions.

The sequestration process, mandated by the Budget Control Act of 2011, imposes spending caps on agency budgets, dropping their resources lower and lower each year until 2021. Though the Bipartisan Budget Act of 2013 changed the amounts for 2014 and 2015, the cuts will return in full starting in fiscal year 2016.

“Unless the sequester is ended, it will cripple the ability of the government to deliver services to the American public,” the NTEU leader warned. “Sequestration was a bad idea from its very beginning. It is not possible to run an effective government under its constraints.”

Federal employees have contributed $159 billion to deficit reduction in the past five years, Kelley wrote, adding that the 1 percent pay raises they received after three years of no raises widened the gap with the private sector.

Federal wage increases trailed private-sector raises by 6.3 percent over that period, making it challenging for agencies to recruit and retain talented employees. Congress has also tried to cut federal retirement by proposing to end the Federal Employees Retirement System (FERS) supplement for those who retire before age 62 and eliminate the FERS pension benefit altogether, Kelley wrote.

The workforce is further demoralized by the recently-passed budget blueprints, in which Congress calls for another $193 billion in cuts from the federal sector, she wrote.

“It is simply not possible to maintain morale in the federal workforce when that workforce endures years of stagnant wages and lives under constant attack and targeting of their employee benefit programs,” Kelley said. “NTEU cannot state strongly enough that defined benefit pensions are what created a middle class in this country.”

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