Complaining But Not Quitting

Working for the government may sound like a sweet gig — regular hours, generous benefits, job security — but it turns out that it’s not how things look from inside the bureaucratic bubble.

With Congress and the White House seeking more revenue and spending cuts to avoid the looming “fiscal cliff,” the message from federal workers and their powerful labor unions has been consistent: We already gave at the office and we aren’t giving any more.

Noting that government workers have labored under a two-year spending freeze that will last at least until March, J. David Cox Sr., president of the American Federation of Government Employees, the nation’s largest federal employees union, has demanded that lawmakers take federal wages and benefits off the table during negotiations on the fiscal cliff, contending that workplace conditions and stagnant pay scales “have become too much to bear.”
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