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Washington, D.C.—Federal employees won two important victories in today’s markup by the Senate Appropriations Committee of the fiscal 2007 Transportation-Treasury Appropriations bill. One involves approval of a 2007 pay raise of 2.7 percent; the other is language that helps level the playing field for federal workers in the competition for their jobs.

President Colleen M. Kelley of the National Treasury Employees Union (NTEU) applauded both developments.

“The 2.7 percent pay raise is welcome recognition of the important role fair pay has in agency recruitment and retention efforts,” the union leader said. “And the language impacting federal contracting—which mirrors that approved in last year’s appropriations legislation—is a step forward in making public-private job competitions more fair.”

NTEU has been leading the fight against the White House’s aggressive plans to contract out federal work to the private sector. The language in the Appropriations Committee markup continues a provision NTEU won last year requiring that employees be given the chance to compete for their jobs through formation of an employee bid known as the Most Efficient Organization, or MEO.

In addition, the provision requires savings of at least 10 percent of what it would cost the MEO to perform the work—or $10 million—before a federal function can be turned over to the private sector. Moreover, it prevents the direct conversion of functions involving more than 10 positions—and it allows an agency to compete an activity being performed by a private contractor. Kelley promised that NTEU will press hard for inclusion of the language when the bill is taken up by the full Senate.

On the matter of pay, the NTEU leader said “approval of the 2.7 percent raise by the Appropriations Committee—matching earlier approval of that figure by the House of Representatives —reflects the reality of the greater understanding by Congress of the important roles played by federal civil servants.”

She added: “Unfortunately, that understanding does not yet extend to the White House, even after more than five years in office.”

The 2.7 percent raise is half-a-percentage point higher than the 2.2 percent proposed for federal civilian workers by the administration in its 2007 budget proposal.

President Kelley noted that the issue of fair pay for federal employees needs to be viewed in the context of the competition government agencies face with private sector employers for the best workers.

A recent report by the Office of Personnel Management (OPM) underscores the critical problems facing federal agencies. The OPM report said that fully 33 percent of federal civilian workers have reached or are nearing retirement age. It added that federal retirements will be particularly heavy in the 2008-2010 period.

“If agencies lose the competition for the best workers,” Kelley said, “the delivery of critical public services inevitably will suffer.”

NTEU is the largest independent federal union, representing some 150,000 federal workers in 30 agencies and departments.