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Washington, D.C.—With a proposed federal civilian pay raise of a mere 1.5 percent in 2005, President Bush is clearly out of step with a bipartisan majority of Congress which recognizes the value and contributions of the members of the federal workforce, the leader of the nation’s largest independent union of federal workers said today.

President Colleen M. Kelley of the National Treasury Employees Union (NTEU), who sharply criticized the administration’s 2005 pay proposal for civilian employees, noted that by wide bipartisan majorities in each of the last three years, Congress has approved pay parity between military and civilian personnel.

“Congress understands and appreciates the tradition of civilian-military pay parity,” President Kelley said, “as well as the importance of a fair pay raise in helping the federal government recruit and retain the high-quality employees that agencies need.” The president’s 2005 budget proposal calls for a 3.5 percent pay raise for members of the military, which NTEU supports.

The administration’s proposal for a 1.5 percent pay raise is sending a clear and damaging message throughout the federal civilian workforce, President Kelley said.

Kelley on Proposed 2005 Pay Raise

“The message that federal employees get from this president,” Kelley said, “is that they are not as important, that they are not valued and that their work is somehow less important than that of their uniformed counterparts. That is where the real damage is done.”

Not only has the president disregarded the long tradition of military-civilian pay parity—and in so doing has ignored expressions of support for pay parity from members of both the House and Senate—he has once again failed to follow the Federal Employees Pay Comparability Act (FEPCA), a federal pay statute signed into law by his father.

FEPCA, which was designed to close in stages by now the wide gap between pay in the public and private sectors, has not been fully implemented since its passage in 1990. But no president has offered an alternative pay plan, as permitted by FEPCA under certain circumstances, which is nearly as far from the dictates of the statute as has the current president.

Kelley said the president’s actions are particularly disappointing since any number of groups, both public and private, have identified inadequate pay as a major reason for the inability of the federal government to recruit and retain the high-quality employees it needs.

NTEU is the largest independent federal union, representing some 150,000 employees in 29 agencies and departments.

For more information, visit the NTEU web site at www.nteu.org