IFPTE Joins 25 Organizations Calling in Support of the Federal Retirement Fairness Act

Twenty-six federal employee organizations, mostly unions, including IFPTE, signed a letter this week to Congress asking lawmakers to sign their name onto HR 5995, the bipartisan Federal Retirement Act.  The legislation, which is jointly sponsored by Representatives Derek Kilmer (D, WA-6) and Don Bacon (R, NE-2) aims to bring pension equity to federal workers hired before 1989 as temporary workers. 

The impacted federal and postal workers who were later designated as full-time workers were prevented at the time from contributing to the Federal Employee Retirement System (FERS) pension because of their designation as ‘non-career’, thereby denying them the full FERS pension they would otherwise be entitled to.  The legislation would allow the impacted workers to make catch-up contributions to their FERS retirement to allow them to avoid working longer careers than expected or retiring and losing out on their full FERS benefit.  

Read the full letter here, and see the legislation here.