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Washington, D.C.—The Federal Service Impasses Panel (FSIP) has taken jurisdiction of the bargaining impasse between the National Treasury Employees Union (NTEU) and the Securities & Exchange Commission (SEC) over implementation of a pay parity plan for SEC employees with an eye toward concluding the matter by the September 30 end of the fiscal year, NTEU President Colleen M. Kelley said today.

“I am pleased that the (FSIP) rejected the arguments presented by the agency that NTEU’s proposals interfered with its right to determine its budget, and that the parties were not truly at impasse in these negotiations,” Kelley said. “I’m hopeful now that the panel has accepted jurisdiction of this dispute, agency management will take a more reasonable position” in discussions with the FSIP, which are scheduled for September 4 and 5, she added.

NTEU worked tirelessly and successfully for passage earlier this year of legislation providing pay parity for SEC employees with those in other federal financial regulatory agencies.

But the SEC unilaterally implemented a pro-management pay parity plan that provides a disproportionately lower share of the $25 million in available pay parity funds for the current fiscal year. The overriding issue, President Kelley said, is fairness. The salaries of NTEU-represented employees comprise approximately 60 percent of the SEC salary budget, she said, but the pay parity plan unilaterally implemented by the SEC provides front-line workers with only about 40 percent of available funds.

Moreover, the NTEU leader said, the SEC plan replaces the current merit-based performance evaluation system with one that provides management with a non-appealable veto power, using no known standards or criteria, to decide who gets a raise and who doesn’t.

The FSIP, a seven-member body which is an arm of the Federal Labor Relations Authority (FLRA), ordered that the pay parity dispute be resolved through the use of an informal conference before one of its members.

If no resolution is achieved in that forum, the FSIP member reports to the full panel, including the parties’ final offers, statements of position, and his or her recommendation. After that, the FSIP takes final action on the matter, which could include issuing a decision and order.

President Kelley said NTEU is “very encouraged” by the panel’s decision to act on the matter quickly. “This will help ensure that any resolution, either between the parties or as a result of a panel order, can be implemented promptly, and without risking the types of problems that might ensue if this dispute were to drag into the next fiscal year,” she said.

The NTEU leader added that the union will press the case with SEC and the FSIP “that the law requires that the SEC compensation system provide true comparability with other federal financial regulatory agencies, and that SEC employees deserve a proportional share of the funds that Congress appropriates for implementing pay parity.”

The thrust of the legislation establishing pay parity at the SEC was to help address the agency’s severe recruitment and retention problems.

NTEU is the largest independent federal union, representing some 150,000 employees in 26 agencies and departments.