AFL-CIO opposes payroll tax cut deal

The nation's largest labor federation said Friday it opposes the payroll tax cut deal.

In a letter sent to House members, Bill Samuel, the AFL-CIO's director of government affairs, said the bill punishes the unemployed and federal workers.

Samuel said lawmakers should have paid for an extension of unemployment benefits with a a surtax on incomes above $1 million if they wanted to insist that the bill be paid for.

"Unemployed workers and federal employees continue to be blamed for problems they did not cause," Samuel writes in the letter. "Meanwhile, the people who did cause the crash of 2008, from which our economy is still slowly recovering, have largely gotten off scot free. Shared sacrifice should start at the top, with a surtax on millionaires, not with unemployed workers or middle class working families who provide vital services to the federal government."

The bill would require newly hired federal workers hired after this year to pay more into their pensions. Further, the legislation will cut back on unemployment benefits.

Federal worker unions have lobbied hard against the bill this week after lawmakers agreed to include language requiring workers to pay more into their retirement packages. 

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