AFGE Keeps After Screeners

By ARI PAUL

Officials from the American Federation of Government Employees Feb. 5 unveiled the union's legislative agenda for 2008, which focuses on improving collective-bargaining rights and raising pay for Federal employees.

J. DAVID COX: An ambitious agenda.

President Bush in his budget proposal offered an average 2.9-percent pay increase for most Federal employees in 2009, while proposing an average 3.4-percent increase for military personnel. AFGE officials said they would push for a 4.4-percent raise.

Hopes to Add Screeners

In a conference call with reporters, AFGE National Secretary-Treasurer J. David Cox said that the union would continue to lobby for legislation allowing Transportation Security Administration screeners to engage in collective bargaining. AFGE represents several thousand TSA employees around the country, and is engaged in a turf war with the National Treasury Employees Union over organizing other airports.

Mr. Cox boasted that the TSA employees previously represented by the NTEU at John F. Kennedy Airport switched their membership to AFGE last month. He said he was confident that TSA employees would win bargaining rights and that AFGE would ultimately be the exclusive bargaining agent.

"We will be that union," he said. "We will be going out there very strong in that arena."

Patricia Randle, an administrative assistant in the union's Women and Fair Practices Division, said that the union would also lobby for more rights for disabled workers, adding that while there were laws protecting them, some Federal agencies were not in full compliance.

While AFGE's legislative platform centered on protecting its members, Mr. Cox added that it would lobby on behalf of veterans seeking medical services in the Department of Veterans Affairs. He promised that the union would fight to secure full health coverage.

"Men and women who have served this country, who fought in the Second World War and Vietnam and now are fighting in the Iraq War, should have their insurance premiums paid in full," he said.