Press Releases

This evening Rep. Don Beyer (D-VA) will welcome Everett Kelley, who serves as the National Secretary-Treasurer for the American Federation of Government Employees (AFGE), as his guest for the President’s State of the Union Address. AFGE is the largest federal employee union in the United States, with hundreds of thousands of members.

“As President Trump comes to the Capitol to deliver his State of the Union Address, hundreds of thousands of federal workers are anxiously waiting to find out whether he will again choose to shut down large segments of the federal government,” said Rep. Beyer. “Many of the thousands of federal employees represented by AFGE are among those whose lives were turned upside down by the recent shutdown. I know National Secretary-Treasurer Kelley and the civil servants I represent will be listening closely to hear whether the President will give any consideration to federal employees in his speech tonight.”

Everett Kelley has been an AFGE member since 1981, and served as AFGE’s National Secretary-Treasurer since 2018. More biographical details are available here.

Congressman Don Beyer represents nearly 87,000 federal employees, the largest number of any Member of the House of Representatives. The Senate companion version of his legislation to grant furloughed federal employees affected by the shutdown back pay was signed into law earlier last month, and he was an original cosponsor of recently-passed House legislation to give a raise to the civilian federal workforce.