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Washington, D.C.—The National Treasury Employees Union (NTEU) today unveiled its 2006 priority legislative agenda, one day before 300 NTEU members from around the country gather in Washington for the start of the union’s annual three-day Legislative Conference.

“Each of these priority issues is a vital matter for federal workers,” said NTEU President Colleen M. Kelley. “We will bring to bear on them—and other legislative matters that undoubtedly will arise—the full efforts and energy of NTEU at the national, chapter and grassroots levels.”

The union’s priority legislative issues for 2006 include its opposition to the proposed Working for America Act (WFAA); support for a fair federal pay raise; efforts to secure an increase in the government’s contribution to federal employee health care premiums; even greater efforts to prevent the accelerating privatization of federal work by the administration; and the pressing need to address a range of issues that are adversely impacting the ability of Department of Homeland Security (DHS) employees to accomplish their mission, particularly the lack of law enforcement officer (LEO) status.

The accelerated effort on these issues begins tomorrow with face-to-face meetings of NTEU members with their representatives and senators. “NTEU always has placed a high premium on the personal contact of our members with their elected officials,” President Kelley said.

She added: “Traditionally, their educational efforts in explaining the impact back home of decisions affecting federal workers has been one of our most powerful tools.”

One of the key issues to be addressed is WFAA, an administration legislative proposal that has yet to attract a congressional sponsor. If ultimately enacted, it would extend government-wide the regressive regulations the administration is trying to put in place in both the Departments of Homeland Security (DHS) and Defense.

WFAA would place significant limits on employee collective bargaining, due process and appeal rights—and would replace the General Schedule pay system with untested, subjective and complex pay rules. NTEU is strongly opposed to WFAA.

In addition to WFAA, NTEU members will address the need for a fair pay raise for federal workers in 2007, emphasizing that the 2.2 percent raise proposed by the White House fails to meet standards of fairness—it is less than the rate of inflation—and would deprive federal agencies of an important tool in their fight to be competitive with private sector employers for the best workers.

The same impact is true for continually-rising federal health care premiums, which rose an average of 10 percent for 2006. Conference delegates will press for an increase, from an average 72 percent to an average 80 percent, in the government’s share of federal health insurance premiums.

The NTEU members also will seek to impress on Congress the unwise use of taxpayer dollars stemming from the administration’s continuing efforts to turn over federal work to the private sector despite the lack of meaningful evidence that the practice is cost-effective or produces quality work.

And they will push for additional resources for front-line employees in DHS’s Bureau of Customs and Border Protection (CBP), as well as continue NTEU’s effort to achieve for CBP Officers the long-denied but well-deserved designation of law enforcement officer (LEO). That denial is just one of the morale-busting issues impacting DHS employees; others, including the need to abandon the mismanaged and unwise ‘One Face at the Border’ initiative—which has sharply diluted inspectional expertise—will be on their agenda as well.

NTEU is the largest independent federal union, representing some 150,000 employees in 30 agencies and departments.