Unions Rally for Social Security Fairness on Capitol Hill

(Update: As of 5 p.m. on September 19, the discharge petition has successfully moved the Social Security Fairness Act to the House floor for a vote. With the finish line in sight, we must now switch our focus from the discharge petition to passage of H.R. 82 on the House floor later this month!)

With just over a week before members of Congress leave Washington, D.C. until after the November elections, the time is now to pass the bipartisan Social Security Fairness Act (SSFA) (H.R. 82, S. 597)!

Joined by a number of public-sector union leaders, including APWU President Mark Dimondstein, the leaders of this bill, Rep. Garret Graves (R-LA-06) and Rep. Abigail Spanberger (D-VA-07), held a press conference on Thursday morning in support of the SSFA.

If passed, this bill would repeal the Windfall Elimination Provision (WEP) and the Government Pension Offset (GPO), which are parts of Social Security law that unfairly reduce, or sometimes eliminate, Social Security benefits for almost three million civil servants, including postal workers, many state employees, and federal annuitants, as well as their survivors. The GPO and WEP penalize postal and federal Civil Service Retirement System (CSRS) retirees that meet the requirements for Social Security benefits and have paid their fair share into the program.

Although the bill has bipartisan support in both the House and Senate, it has not been able to move out of committee to the House floor for a vote. That’s why Rep. Graves and Rep. Spanberger now support a discharge petition, H. Res. 1410. A discharge petition is a process to bring any bill sitting in committee to the House floor for a vote as long as at least 218 members of Congress sign the petition.

“We are really proud and pleased that we are at the cusp of finally righting this wrong and getting some real justice moving forward - stopping the theft, stopping the raid on our pensions, and letting those civil service retirees live their retirement [with] the dignity and the financial security that [they] earn,” said APWU President Mark Dimondstein.

“We urge all the Congress folks who have not yet signed the discharge petition to do so. Let’s bring this to a vote…let the needs and the voices of the people be heard…and we’ll finally get the justice our retirees have earned today and into the future,” he concluded.

Thanks to the hard work of our members and allies from all 50 states who made phone calls to their representatives during our “Call Congress Day of Action” last week, we are now only 13 signatures away from a successful discharge petition!

“Today I witnessed what we can accomplish when we work together,” said APWU Legislative and Political Director Judy Beard. “We thank Rep. Graves and Rep. Spanberger for their support in this fight for justice. Regardless of party, each speaker at today’s press conference said the same thing – GPO and WEP are wrong, and they must be repealed now! Due to the hard work of our members, along with other unions and affected organizations, we have built a strong movement that will get this bill to the House floor!”