Labor chief faces challenges as advocate for federal workers
By ERIK WASSON
The Hill
May 15, 2012
http://thehill.com/business-a-lobbying/227333-federal-workers-defense

For 13 years, Colleen Kelley has served as one of
Washington's leading advocates for federal workers.

As president of the National Treasury Employees Union
(NTEU), Kelley has had a hand in every major deficit
negotiation of the last year. She has tangled with the
Tea Party and gone up against GOP standard-bearers
Reps. Darrell Issa (Calif.) and Paul Ryan (Wis.). She
represents everyone's favorite: the tax collectors.


Her job has never been tougher.

"This is the worst political climate for federal
workers in decades," Kelley told The Hill in an
interview at her H Street headquarters. "You see these
current attacks, they're nonstop. Literally everyday
there's a new one aimed at federal employees."

Kelley is now tracking two dozen bills in Congress
aimed at reducing worker pay and benefits, the highest
she has seen since joining NTEU in the 1970s as a
worker at the IRS.

House Republicans have proposed five-year pay freezes,
5 percent increases in employee contributions to
retirement plans and the requirement that two workers
leave before one is hired. They have argued that
federal worker pay is too generous and guaranteed
pensions unaffordable, given a $16 trillion national
debt.

Half of Kelley's time is spent traveling the country,
comforting frightened members of her union, most of
whom work outside the Beltway. Fear was especially high
last year when the government almost shut down due to a
budget battle and workers worried they would lose pay.

"It is very hard for them to understand why these
attacks keep coming. They know they work hard; they are
proud of what they do; they are dedicated," she said.

Kelley is passionate when talking about the
contribution that people can make when choosing to work
for the government. She still thinks young people
should go into the bureaucracy to "make a difference."

Kelley's office is filled with Sept. 11 memorials given
to her by members working for the Department of
Homeland Security.

"I think a lot of federal employees do their work under
the radar. The country depends on them to do it without
a lot of fanfare. They just expect them to do it," she
said.

"A lot of this hostile legislation very often comes
from those who don't respect federal employees and what
they do. They just want less federal employees and they
want to turn that work over to contractors at a much
higher price," she said.


To keep the enthusiasm to cut worker benefits in check,
Kelly is trying to make her members more popular. That
can be especially hard when your members are tax
collectors.

"It just goes with the nature of what they do," she
said of the public disdain. "I guess if you are getting
a refund you might have a bit of a different experience
with them.

"Some people just have an initial reaction to IRS
rather than thinking about what they do," she added.
"If they think about some agency that they really like
and really need, like the National Park Service or the
FDA ... if the IRS doesn't collect the revenue and you
depend on those services, they can't do that."

Kelley ticks off a list of close allies in Congress; at
the top of the all-Democrat list are House Minority
Whip Steny Hoyer (Md.) and Budget Committee ranking
member Chris Van Hollen (Md.).

"There is no doubt that when we look at the
implications of various budget proposals, we seek her
input," Van Hollen, who served on last year's debt
supercommittee and the earlier Biden deficit talks,
told The Hill.

"Federal civilian employees, whether or not they are
members of NTEU, have no more effective or able
champion than Colleen Kelley," Hoyer said.

To understand what makes Kelley tick, you have to first
understand that she is from Pittsburgh.

"I have been here for 23 years now and when I travel on
airplanes inevitably I get a talker and they ask where
I'm from and I always say Pittsburgh," she said. "I
will never be from D.C."

She goes home about once a month.

"It's 240 miles door to door and I can drive it
blindfolded," she said.

Like most Yinzers, Kelley is a Steelers fanatic. And
her office features a large drawing of Forbes Field,
the former home of the Pirates that used to be a quick
walk from her house.

"I was a big baseball fan when [Roberto] Clemente
played," she said. "Then they tore down Forbes Field
and went to a bigger stadium, and it just kind of lost
something."

Kelley has a large family back in the 'Burgh.

Twenty-nine family members came out to celebrate when
Kelley became NTEU vice president in 1995.

Unionism runs in Kelley's family. Her father, now
deceased, was a Teamster and a truck driver. A photo of
her parents occupies a place of honor to the right of
her desk.

Still, Kelley said, when she joined the IRS as an
accountant she did not intend to become a union leader.
Unaccountable managers convinced her to take action.

"You see injustices and things that are unfair," she
said.

Since winning election in 1999 as president, the last
time she ran unopposed, Kelley said her greatest
achievements involved working with the Bush
administration to stop the outsourcing of IRS
collection activities and getting customs and border
agents to choose NTEU as their union when Homeland
Security was created.

A membership setback came last year when the
Transportation Security Agency decided to go with the
rival American Federation of Government Workers as its
union of choice.

Another tough one was the 2010 imposition of a two-year
pay freeze for federal workers that President Obama
signed off on and an increase in pension contributions
for new hires used to pay for the extension of
unemployment insurance in February.

"I made clear my dissatisfaction and disagreement with
that action," Kelley said of the pay freeze when asked
if Obama had betrayed her members. "We have worked hard
over the last two years in an effort to have the
administration support that the pay freeze needs to end
and they have been very public and very clear that the
pay freeze needs to end."

So far NTEU has not endorsed Obama for reelection, but
it is clear Kelley views GOP candidate Mitt Romney as
worse. Romney's economic plan suggests slashing federal
compensation by up to 40 percent.

"What he and others never talk about is how they are
going to get the work done that the public depends on,"
she said.

Out on the road, Kelley tells members to pressure their
elected officials.

"I tell them everything about the working life of a
federal employee is decided by someone who is elected,"
she said. "The upcoming year will be very important and
the upcoming election will determine whether it will be
another two years or four years until [the climate for
federal workers] changes."

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