Largest Federal Employee Union Denounces Obama Administration Proposal to Freeze Pay

Pay Freeze Proposal Amounts to Symbolic Gesture

WASHINGTON, Nov. 29, 2010 /PRNewswire-USNewswire/ -- The American Federation of Government Employees today decried President Obama's proposal to freeze pay for federal civilian employees in 2011 and 2012.  

"This proposal is a superficial panic reaction to the draconian cuts the deficit commission will recommend," stated AFGE National President John Gage.  "A federal pay freeze saves peanuts at best and, while he may mean it as just a public relations gesture, this is no time for political scapegoating.  The American people didn't vote to stick it to a VA nursing assistant making $28,000 a year or a border patrol agent earning $34,000 per year.

"President Obama asks federal workers to share the sacrifice, but it's unconscionable for him to attack the wages of federal working people while the millionaires and billionaires on Wall Street not only get their bailouts and astronomical bonuses; they also get their tax cuts," concluded Gage.

The American Federation of Government Employees (AFGE) is the largest federal employee union, representing 600,000 workers in the federal government and the government of the District of Columbia.

SOURCE American Federation of Government Employees