SSA workers protest threat of furloughs and office closures

[unhappycamper]

SSA workers protest threat of furloughs and office closures
By FederalDaily Staff
Oct 28, 2011


Social Security Administration employees at offices scattered across the country successfully launched street demonstrations Oct. 27, drawing attention to the need to protect their jobs and the potential for vastly deteriorated service that further cost-cutting measures pending in Congress could instigate.

"Most of the events were actual rallies," said Christina Erling, a spokeswoman at the American Federation of Government Employees, which represents employees at SSA. "Some events were at our small offices, while others were at our bigger facilities, which had many more participants. Like Oakland, where we have a couple hundred people."

"Nearer Washington, we have big offices in Falls Church, Va., and Baltimore, and we had maybe 70 people (protesting)," she said. "We would have had even more if the weather hadn't been a problem."

Erling said that in total, thousands of employees participated in at least 134 SSA locations nationwide.




unhappycamper comment: And in other news, Mass. senator (John Kerry) calls for outsourcing USAJobs. The assault on Social Security is on.

[mysuzuki2]

1. there is really no good reason for furloughs or office closures.

first of all, SSA offices are seriously understaffed as is. The workers are stressed and overburdened with work. The end result is that some work just doesn't get done or gets done poorly under pressure from management. Secondly, SSA's overhead, salaries, benefits, office costs etc. represents only about 2% of the agencies budget. Savings from furloughs and closures, short term as they will be, will amount to only an infinitesimal amount. In short, this will have the effect of harming both employees and recipients while saving almost no money.