FEW Announces Legislative Goals for Remainder of 110th Congress; Delivers Fact Sheets to Legislators

WASHINGTON, Mar. 26 /PRNewswire/ --

WASHINGTON, March 26 /PRNewswire-USNewswire/ -- Federally Employed Women (FEW) has announced the organization's four legislative priorities for the remainder of the 110th Congress.

1. Enactment of a Paid Parental Leave Act (S 80/HR 3799). FEW supports the creation of a new and separate category of paid leave for federal workers following the birth or adoption of a child. 2. Enactment of the SES Diversity bill (S2148/HR3774). The Senior Executive Service (SES) needs to better reflect the diversity of the federal workforce overall. 3. Enactment of the FERS Redeposit Act (HR 2533). Retirees who return to government service after receiving a refund of retirement contributions should be able to re-enter without losing their accrued annuity. 4. Repeal of the Government Pension Offset (GPO) and Windfall Elimination Provision (WEP). These unfair Social Security provisions drastically reduce benefits for federal retirees simply because they chose to serve their country in the civilian workforce.

"These four legislative priorities will achieve the organization's overall goal of preparing the federal workforce for the vast numbers of projected retirements expected over the next five years," stated FEW's President Rhonda Trent. "We need to ensure that the services performed by these retiring federal workers -- many of who serve in managerial roles -- are not curtailed due to a lack of personnel." For more information on these issues, visit http://www.few.org.

In order to help achieve these goals, FEW has hand-delivered the fact sheets, along with the organization's Legislative Agenda (http://www.few.org/docs/legislative/FEW_Agenda%20newsletter110.pdf) and employment statistics for each congressional district () to every legislators' office. "Already we have added several co-sponsors to these bills following their receipt of these packets," announced Janet Kopenhaver, FEW's Washington Representative. "On behalf of the over one million women serving in the federal government (both civilian and military), we are asking all legislators and their staffs to review these packets and co-sponsor these important bills," added Cecelia Davis, FEW's Vice President for Congressional Relations. FEW's members have been sending their own letters to their legislators on these issues to confirm their support of federally employed women nationwide.

FEW will also soon release the results of a scorecard that ranks legislators for the first session of the 110th Congress on how well they supported federal workers through co-sponsorship actions and votes taken during 2007. "Our members want to know how supportive their legislators were about issues of importance to federal workers and they will be reviewing the results carefully as we move into the election season," advised Kopenhaver.

FEW is a private, non-profit organization founded in 1968 after Executive Order 11375 was issued that added sex discrimination to the list of prohibited discrimination in the federal government. FEW has grown into a proactive organization serving more than one million federally employed women -- both in the military and civilian workforce.

For more information on FEW, visit http://www.few.org.