National Federation of Federal Employees - History

History

NFFE grew quickly. For example, by 1929 it had organized more than 1,500 workers at the Bureau 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. 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 became industrial unions. Even many of the D.C.-area unions abandoned their craft orientation to become industrial unions with agency-wide bargaining units.

The significance of the Bureau of Engraving and Printing local was not lost on NFFE. NFFE became a strong advocate for women's rights, and elected a woman, Florence Etheridge, as the chair of its first national council.

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 the Classification Act, which established uniform, nationwide compensation levels and tied them to the duties and responsibilities of job positions.

In 1931, NFFE disaffiliated from the American 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, the American Federation of Government Employees (AFGE), on October 17, 1932.

In 1962, President John F. Kennedy signed Executive Order 10988, establishing the right of federal workers to engage in collective 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.

In 1963, NFFE was one of the foremost proponents of the Equal Pay Act.

NFFE became embroiled in a major legal fight with the Reagan 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. In May 1988, a U.S. District Court ruled in National Federation of Federal Employees v. United States (688 F. Supp. 671) that Standard Form 189 was constitutional. The NFFE and other plaintiffs appealed to the U.S. Supreme Court. In July 1988, the District Court further held in National 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 the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit. 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 in American 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 in American Foreign Service Association v. Garfinkel, 732 F. Supp. 13), and NFFE dropped any further attempts to revive the suit.