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| Founded | September 17, 1917 |
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| Headquarters | Washington, D.C. |
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| Members | 100,000[1] |
National President | Randy Erwin |
| Affiliations | International Association of Machinists and Aerospace Workers,AFL–CIO |
| Website | nffe |
TheNational Federation of Federal Employees (NFFE) is an Americanlabor union which represents about 100,000 public employees in thefederal government.
NFFE has about 200 local unions, most of them agency-widebargaining units. Its members work primarily in theDepartment of Defense, theForest Service, theDepartment of Veterans Affairs, theGeneral Services Administration, theNational Park Service, theArmy Corps of Engineers, theDepartment of Housing and Urban Development, and the Passport Services division of theBureau of Consular Affairs (Department of State).
Workers in federal agencies had formedcraft-based unions on the local level beginning in the early 1880s. Unions representing letter carriers and railway postal clerks won passage in 1888 of federal legislation mandating aneight-hour day for postal workers. In 1898, these two unions—with the support of theKnights of Labor and theAmerican Federation of Labor—pushed for legislation revising federal postal salaries as well. Although the effort was unsuccessful, a union of postal clerks organized in 1900.[2]
The growing power of these and other unions in the federal government ledPresidentTheodore Roosevelt to issueExecutive order 163 on January 31, 1902, banning federal workers from "individually or through associations, [soliciting] an increase of pay, or to influence or to attempt to influence in their own interest any legislation whatever, either before Congress or its Committees, or in any way save through the heads of the Departments in or under which they serve, on penalty of dismissal from the government service."[3] This Executive Order was expanded by Roosevelt on January 26, 1906, to include theindependent agencies as well. On November 26, 1908, Roosevelt dramatically widened the extent of the Executive Order to include military personnel, expanded the kind of information which could not be communicated, and banned other actions by employees.[2]
UnderCongressional pressure, PresidentWilliam H. Taft made the Executive Order less onerous. On April 8, 1912, Taft amended the order to permit federal workers to communicate with Congress, but required them to do so through their supervisors and department heads.[2]
Unhappy with Taft's refusal to rescind the order entirely, Congress passed theLloyd-La Follette Act (§6, 37 Stat. 555,5 U.S.C. § 7511) on August 24, 1912, declaring that "the right of persons employed in the civil service of the United States, either individually or collectively, to petition Congress or any member thereof or to furnish information to either House of Congress or to any committee thereof, shall not be denied or interfered with."[2]
TheLloyd-La Follette Act provided a significant impetus to the formation federal employees' unions. In 1916, theAmerican Federation of Labor (AFL) acted to bring the various local unions together to form a single national union. The National Federation of Federal Employees was founded inWashington, D.C., on September 17, 1917. In 1918, it became the first labor union to win the legal right to represent federal workers.[1][2]
NFFE grew quickly. For example, by 1929 it had organized more than 1,500 workers at theBureau of Engraving and Printing. The unit was the largest NFFE chapter in the country, the largest local union in the country, and the largest women's union in the country.[4] NFFE also quickly abandoned its craft focus. Some local chapters—especially those in large federal agencies in Washington, D.C., where the number of workers enabled craft-based bargaining units to remain viable—retained their craft structure. But most of the union's units throughout the country becameindustrial unions. Even many of the D.C.-area unions abandoned their craft orientation to become industrial unions with agency-wide bargaining units.[5]
The significance of the Bureau of Engraving and Printing local was not lost on NFFE. NFFE became a strong advocate forwomen's rights, and elected a woman,Florence Etheridge, as the chair of its first national council.[1]
NFFE relied heavily on the provisions of the Lloyd–La Follette Act as the basis for its operations. Much of the union's focus was on legislative action. For example, it began advocating for a formal federal job classification system and uniform rates of compensation in 1919. These efforts paid off: The same year, Congress established the Joint Congressional Committee on the Reclassification of Salaries. In 1923, NFFE won passage of theClassification Act, which established uniform, nationwide compensation levels and tied them to the duties and responsibilities of job positions.[1]
In 1931, NFFE disaffiliated from theAmerican Federation of Labor. The break occurred over the AFL's refusal to abandon its support for craft unionism and cease its attacks on industrial unions. NFFE disaffiliated in December 1931. The AFL responded by chartering a new federal employees union, theAmerican Federation of Government Employees (AFGE), on October 17, 1932.
In 1962, PresidentJohn F. Kennedy signedExecutive Order 10988, establishing the right of federal workers to engage incollective bargaining. Consequently, union membership among U.S. government employees soared from 13 percent in 1961 to 60 percent in the 1974. NFFE's membership also grew tremendously, roughly doubling during the same period from 80,000 members to 150,000 members.[6]
In 1963, NFFE was one of the foremost proponents of theEqual Pay Act.[1]
NFFE became embroiled in a major legal fight with theReagan administration. In August 1987, the Reagan administration issued civil service rules requiring all federal workers to sign a new secrecy pledge, Standard Form 189. Administration officials said the new form was designed merely to reinforce the need to maintain the security of those documents classified as top secret. But NFFE filed a lawsuit on August 17, 1987, challenging the constitutionality of the secrecy pledge.[7] In May 1988, aU.S. District Court ruled inNational Federation of Federal Employees v. United States (688 F. Supp. 671) that Standard Form 189 was constitutional. The NFFE and other plaintiffs appealed to theU.S. Supreme Court. In July 1988, the District Court further held inNational Federation of Federal Employees v. United States (695 F. Supp. 1196) that certain terms in Standard Form 189 needed additional clarification by the executive branch. NFFE appealed this ruling to theU.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit.[8] Meanwhile, in September 1988, the federal government issued Standard Form 312 as a replacement for Standard Form 189. The new form expunged much of the objectionable language which had so deeply concerned NFFE and other unions. On April 18, 1989, the Supreme Court held inAmerican Foreign Service Association v. Garfinkel,490 U.S. 153, that the issuance of Standard Form 312 may have resolved the conflict. The Supreme Court remanded the case back to the District Court to resolve any outstanding issues. The Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit also remanded the second NFFE lawsuit to District Court. In March 1990, the District Court dismissed the remaining issues in its ruling inAmerican Foreign Service Association v. Garfinkel,732 F. Supp. 13), and NFFE dropped any further attempts to revive the suit.[8]
In 1999, NFFE affiliated with theInternational Association of Machinists and Aerospace Workers (IAM), an AFL–CIO/CLC trade union representing over 600,000 workers as of 2024 in more than 200 industries with most of its membership in the United States and Canada.
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