Our History
Our Mission
NTEU began as a group of employees who banded together to improve their working conditions and their workplace. That is what we were from the beginning and what we remain today.
It all started back in 1938 when a group of Internal Revenue collectors organized to improve their working conditions. At the Bureau of Internal Revenue, the pay was low, the work dangerous and many had no civil service protections to protect them from the whims of political bosses. Other federal employee organizations were unwilling to represent these revenue collectors because they were in patronage positions.
Through NTEU’s persistence over decades, those workers gained civil service protection, collective bargaining rights and contract rights. NTEU transitioned from a social club to a hard-fighting, professional union that would set the standard for bargaining achievements, workplace representation, advocacy on Capitol Hill and for challenging management in the court.
To organize federal employees to work together to ensure that every federal employee is treated with dignity and respect.
Today, NTEU has grown to represent 150,000 employees from 33 different government agencies. Our mission: to help create workplaces where every federal employee is treated with dignity and respect. Over the years, we have done this by advocating for fair pay and benefits, negotiating for telework and alternative work schedules, securing back pay for workers who were improperly paid, expanding federal employees’ political rights and much more.
Chapter 337
Chapter 337 became the exclusive representative of bargaining unit employees at the CFTC in 2014.
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The Union formed because employees were unhappy with how management treated them.
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Employees wanted a say in their working conditions, including compensation and telework.
It is tough for one employee to convince the CFTC – or all of Congress – to provide federal workers with a higher pay raise or establish a new benefit like paid parental leave.
But it’s hard to ignore the collective voices of a large group of employees calling for positive change.
And that is exactly what CFTC's chapter does.