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Washington, D.C. –Passage by the House and Senate today of legislation calling for federal employees to pay the cost of extended unemployment compensation benefits places a truly unacceptable and unfair burden on middle class federal workers while other groups that should be sharing this cost are skipped over, the head of the National Treasury Employees Union (NTEU) said today.

“It is difficult to fathom the rationale for making one group of workers pay benefits to other middle-class families when the wealthy, along with the corporations that helped significantly to create joblessness, are not being asked to share in the cost,” said NTEU President Colleen M. Kelley.

In a letter to House members yesterday, the NTEU leader said “it is unconscionable” to come back to federal workers for another $15 billion reduction in their benefits when they already are contributing $60 billion toward deficit reduction through a two-year pay freeze.

“Where is the shared sacrifice?” she asked.

The NTEU leader added that while the extension of unemployment benefits is a one-time fix, the change to federal employee pensions is permanent. The quadrupling of the amount federal employees must contribute to their pension will make it impossible for many federal workers to contribute to their Thrift Savings Plans (TSP), a key component to a secure federal retirement.

President Kelley applauded House Minority Whip Steny Hoyer (D-Md.), for his vigorous defense of the federal workforce during debate on the measure, H.R. 3630.

“Congressman Hoyer has been for a long time and remains a staunch supporter of the federal workforce,” Kelley said, noting in particular his remark today that the current Congress is “on a path to become the most anti-federal worker Congress” in history.

Many members of Congress from the D.C. metro area strongly opposed the bill because of the anti-federal employee provisions. All represent large numbers of federal employees, and each has been a strong supporter of the federal workforce in the past.

In his remarks, Rep. Gerald Connolly (Va.), said “It is not fair to ask only one group of Americans—federal employees—to bear the burden of reducing the federal deficit. Certainly, they must do their part, and they don’t object to sharing the sacrifice, but shared sacrifice should mean shared sacrifice.”

President Kelley emphasized that this is not the only piece of legislation targeting federal employees; the House already has passed a measure to extend the pay freeze by another year, and the pending House version of the transportation bill, H.R. 7, calls for significant additional increases in pension contributions and benefit cuts from federal employees.

Under H.R. 3630, newly-hired federal employees will pay a substantially-higher portion of their salary for the small defined benefit portion of their Federal Employees Retirement System annuity.

“This will show itself, among other serious ways, in problems that federal agencies will encounter in seeking to recruit and hire the best available employees for their critical missions,” Kelley said.

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