• The American Federation of Government Employees
(AFGE) is the largest federal employee union representing 600,000 federal
and D.C. government workers nationwide and overseas. Workers in virtually
all functions of government at every federal agency depend upon AFGE
for legal representation, legislative advocacy, technical expertise
and informational services.
• AFGE believes that all unions should belong
to the house of labor and has been nationally affiliated with the AFL-CIO
since AFGE was founded in 1932. At AFGE's national convention in 1997,
the delegates took the importance of affiliation one step further, voting
for each of its 1,100 locals to affiliate with their AFL-CIO state federations.
This makes AFGE one of the few nationally affiliated unions to have
all of its locals affiliated at the state level. National President
John Gage, National Secretary-Treasurer Jim Davis and National Vice
President of Women's and Fair Practices Andrea E. Brooks are active
participants in the AFL-CIO, working to enhance and energize the labor
movement.
• AFGE takes seriously its responsibility to help provide
good government services, while ensuring that government workers are
treated fairly and with dignity. The union supports a meaningful transformation
of the federal workplace to improve the way services and benefits are
delivered to the American public.
• As a labor union, AFGE is in a unique
position because it is not currently afforded the same full scope of
collective bargaining rights as workers in the private sector. For this
reason in addition to negotiating working conditions at the bargaining
table, AFGE coordinates a full-scale legislative and political action
program to monitor issues that impact the government work force. When
Congress debates funding of vital government programs administered to
the public by government workers or tackles employee health care issues,
AFGE is on the scene representing its members. AFGE represents government
workers who are the vital threads of the fabric of American life. Government
employees inspect the food we eat and the places we work, they protect
citizens from the illicit flow of drugs, maintain the safety of our
nation's borders, care for our nation's veterans, serve as a vital link
to Social Security recipients, keep the national defense systems prepared
for any danger and much, much more. AFGE is proud to make America work.
The union is headquartered in Washington, D.C., and divided into 12
geographical districts consisting of some 1,100 locals. Over one-half
of AFGE's members are consolidated into agency-wide bargaining units.
Agencies with the highest concentration of union membership include
the Department of Defense, the Department of Veterans Affairs, the Social
Security Administration and the Department of Justice.
• Of the 1.75
million people employed by the federal government, only 250,000 are
based in the Washington, D.C., metropolitan area. The majority work
in federal offices across the nation as mechanics, lawyers, correctional
officers, environmentalists, nurses, mine inspectors and more. The range
of jobs performed by both D.C. and federal government employees is impressive—and
so is their work.
