Jan 29, 2008

AFGE Newsletter: Situation "Ugly"

Council 220 of the American Federation of Government Employees (AFGE), which represents many thousands of Social Security Administration employees, has issued its January 2008 newsletter.

To put it mildly, relations between the union and Social Security management are poor. Here is a quote, from Debbie Fredericksen, Executive Vice President of the Council:
About the current state of labor/management relations within Social Security, Fredericksen is very frank: “It’s ugly,” she says without hesitation. “In the past we had some bad moments, even under partnership, but we got a lot more information. The agency now believes it can do pretty much whatever it wants and management doesn’t think it has to follow the contract.

“They probably thought we would shrivel up and die, but that’s certainly not the case. They may have finally realized that we are not going to run away and a new day is coming.”

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