We all have regrets in our lives, even Mitt Romney, who told a group of high-roller donors that he regrets federal workers are protected by union contracts, so that if he wins the election, he won’t be able to fire as many workers as he’d like to.

J. David Cox was elected AFGE president yesterday by delegates to the union’s convention in Las Vegas. Cox, who served the past six years as AFGE’s secretary-treasurer, succeeds John Gage, who retired after serving nine years in the top job. Eugene Hudson Jr. was elected secretary-treasurer and Augusta Thomas was re-elected vice president for Women´s and Fair Practices.

All efforts to privatize, outsource, reduce, undermine, politicize, underpay or undervalue the work performed on behalf of working families by our federal workforce should be vigorously opposed, wrote the AFL-CIO Executive Council yesterday. The council adopted a policy statement, "Federal Employees Already Have Given Enough," during its August meeting in Washington, D.C., this week. A total of 2.6 million civilian employees in the federal government do everything from making sure our veterans receive their benefits to processing Social Security payments, Medicare and Medicaid reimbursements, collection, processing, and delivery of mail and so much more. 

Richard Fleming served 12 years in the U.S. Army and has worked for the past 20 years at the Veterans Health Administration’s (VHA's) Temple Texas hospital. He began with an entry-level job in the kitchen and, with training and education, became a surgical technician. He also is one of the thousands of modestly paid VHA workers whose jobs have been arbitrarily downgraded.

Nobody talked  to me about it. I found out I was downgraded through a memo….I was downgraded by people who do not ever see what I do on a day-to-day basis.

Fifty years ago today, President John F. Kennedy signed an executive order opening the door for 2 million federal employees to join unions. His action set the stage for expanding these rights under Presidents Nixon, Ford and Carter—a bipartisan recognition that federal employees should have a voice on the job.