It’s a major milestone in the fight for retirement security for public service workers.
The Senate voted 76-20 early Saturday to pass the Social Security Fairness Act, a bill that would eliminate the Windfall Elimination Provision (WEP) and Government Pension Offset (GPO) provisions from Social Security.
Having cleared the House of Representatives by an overwhelming, bipartisan margin in November, the bill is on its way to the White House, where President Joe Biden is expected to sign it into law.
The victory was decades in the making, as AFSCME President Lee Saunders noted in a statement: “This historic victory for public service workers is a product of nonstop advocacy and perseverance. For years, AFSCME members have sounded the alarm on GPO-WEP, which denied some public service workers their Social Security benefits simply for pursuing careers that help others.”
He thanked Sen. Sherrod Brown and Reps. Garret Graves of Louisiana and Abigail Spanberger of Virginia for their leadership on the issue, as well as other labor unions who have fought alongside AFSCME.
For 40 years, the GPO-WEP unjustly targeted those who have dedicated their careers to public service, leaving nearly 3 million retirees vulnerable to cuts to their already modest Social Security benefits.
AFSCME working and retiree members have fought tenaciously for retirement security for all public service workers and have led the fight to repeal the unfair GPO-WEP provisions. In the past year alone, activists across the country made more than 8,000 phone calls and wrote more than 28,000 letters to their elected leaders to bring an end to these unfair cuts.
They have also shown their activism on the issue with rallies, online campaigns and more. That fight has now paid off.