National President Dougan Calls on White House to Hold Firm Against Federal Pay Cuts in Fiscal Year 2011 Budget Negotiations

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
Contact: Randy Erwin, Legislative Director
Phone: (202) 216-4451

Washington, D.C. – This afternoon, NFFE National President William R. Dougan penned a letter to President Obama, Speaker Boehner, and Majority Leader Reid urging them to exclude federal pay cuts from their Fiscal Year 2011 budget negotiations.

Full body of President Dougan’s letter follows:

“On behalf of the National Federation of Federal Employees (NFFE), and the 110,000 federal workers our union represents throughout the United States and abroad, I urge you not to accept any provisions that further target federal workers’ pay and benefits as part of a fiscal year 2011 budget compromise with Congress.

It has come to our attention that the House Majority may be seeking to bar merit-based step increases for federal employees.  Eliminating these merit-based step increases could severely harm performance in federal agencies as it is one of the few tools agencies have to reward good performance. Eliminating step increases would lead to a flight of talent that would be very harmful to the functioning of federal agencies in the short- and long-term. In fact, a similar amendment to eliminate step increases was defeated in the House in strong bipartisan fashion just a few weeks back.

As you know, federal employees have already been penalized with a two-year pay freeze this year.  This pay freeze comes despite the fact that federal employees make 24% less than workers doing the same jobs in the private sector.  The Federal Employee Pay Comparability Act of 1990 called for federal employees to have a 5 percent target pay gap.  Federal compensation is still nowhere near 5 percent below rates of pay in the private sector.  Despite what some misinformed lawmakers say about federal compensation, federal employees are in fact severely underpaid, not overpaid.

We hope that an agreement can be made to fund the federal government before a shutdown occurs, but any further cuts that are targeted at the federal workforce should be considered unacceptable.”

Full Letter (PDF): http://www.nffe.org/ht/a/GetDocumentAction/i/32076