Budget

AFL-CIO critiques deal, but doesn’t urge no vote

by Erik Wasson - 12/11/13 2:19 PM ET

The AFL-CIO on Wednesday critiqued the new House-Senate budget deal but did not explicitly call on its allies in Congress to vote it down.

Stronger opposition from the pillar of the Democratic power base could have jeopardized the deal, which is already under pressure from conservative activists and anti-tax groups.

The AFL-CIO unions are opposed to the fact the deal does not extend expiring unemployment benefits, does not entirely replaces $91 billion in sequester cuts and does not increase taxes on the wealthy.

{mosads}The group is also opposed to $6 billion in cuts to future federal employee retirement benefits in the deal and to an increase in premiums paid to the Pension Benefit Guarantee Corporation (PBGC).

The deal “does not represent the clean break from budget austerity that our economy so urgently needs,” AFL-CIO President Richard Trumka said in statement.

“The agreement further undermines retirement security by increasing the fees paid by private firms to the PBGC, which will likely be used to justify new rounds of pension dumping by healthy companies,” he said.

Trumka called on Congress to do away with the rest of the sequester, “enact a jobs bill, invest in our future, raise the minimum wage to $10.10 and devote its full attention to restoring full employment and raising wages.”

The AFL-CIO-affiliated American Federation of Government Employees union said in a statement on Wednesday that it opposes the deal over its 1.3-percentage-point increase in future federal worker pension contributions, but it thanks its allies in Congress, led by House Minority Whip Steny Hoyer (D-Md.), for reducing the cut to pensions in the final deal from $20 billion to $6 billion.

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