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Washington, D.C.—The president of the nation’s largest independent union of federal workers today conducted a spirited Capitol Hill rally of union members demanding an end to the wholesale contracting out of federal jobs and attacks on workers’ collective bargaining rights, and in support of a fair pay raise for federal employees.

President Colleen M. Kelley of the National Treasury Employees Union (NTEU) led more than 250 NTEU members in the lunchtime rally that was part of the union’s annual Legislative Conference.

Standing on the West Front of the Capitol, the NTEU leader directed some of her harshest criticisms of administration policy toward proposed regulations establishing a new personnel system in the Department of Homeland Security (DHS). Among other problems, the proposals would severely impact employee due process rights by eliminating impartial outside review of disputes.

“DHS wants to be both prosecutor and judge,” President Kelley said, to the cheers of the NTEU members.

After running down a lengthy list of issues affecting federal workers—including unwise proposals for reductions-in-force at the Internal Revenue Service, an unfair and inadequate pay raise proposal for 2005, and issues affecting federal employee health care and benefits—President Kelley welcomed a number of members of Congress who share the same concerns.

Joining NTEU at the rally were U.S. Reps. Steny Hoyer (D-MD), and Tim Bishop (D-NY), along with Del. Eleanor Holmes Norton (D-DC), each of whom expressed not only their support of federal employees—including the need for civilian-military pay parity—but their disagreement with the approach of the current administration to federal workers, as well.

“This country believes in the right to organize, to bargain collectively and to be paid a fair wage,” Rep. Hoyer said. But, he said in referring to the administration’s policies toward unions, “this administration does not believe in collective bargaining rights, public or private.”

Hoyer urged continued political activism on the part of NTEU members across the country. “Congress needs to know that the basic right to organize is something that you hold dear.”

Rep. Bishop took up the theme of the dangers in the proposed DHS regulations by noting that the proposals “imperil workplace rights for no good reason.” He called what is happening in DHS “the latest battle in an ongoing war this administration has declared” against working men and women.

“When rights are diminished for some,” he said, “they are diminished for all.”

Del. Norton, who along with Rep. Hoyer and other bipartisan members of Congress has been a long-time supporter of federal employees, took note of the administration’s continuing attacks on the pay and rights of federal workers, and said: “There is only one thing to do—and that is to fight back.”

NTEU’s Legislative Conference ends with a luncheon tomorrow at which Sen. Barbara Mikulski (D-MD) will speak. As the largest independent federal union, NTEU represents some 150,000 employees in 29 agencies and departments.