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Washington, D.C.—President Colleen M. Kelley of the National Treasury Employees Union (NTEU) today applauded as “indicative of the bipartisan will of Congress” approval by the House Appropriations Committee of the Treasury, Postal and General Government Appropriations Bill for fiscal 2002 calling for a 4.6 percent pay raise for federal civilian employees.
Kelley has been an outspoken proponent of continued pay parity for military and civilian federal employees and she called today’s vote by this key committee “strong evidence that Congress understands the fairness inherent in pay parity.”
In particular, she credited Rep. Steny Hoyer (D-MD) with successfully offering the amendment to include the 4.6 pay raise provision, and, along with Rep. Hoyer, she singled out other members of Congress, including Virginia Republicans Tom Davis and Frank Wolf and Rep. Jim Moran (D-VA) for leadership on this issue. “This truly is a bipartisan matter,” she said.
The Treasury, Postal appropriations bill still must be approved by the full House, and a similar measure must work its way through the Senate. The administration is thus far sticking with its proposal to provide a 3.6 percent pay raise in 2002 for federal civilian employees, a full percentage point below the 4.6 percent it originally proposed for members of the military.
In the past two weeks, the administration has suggested raising the military pay increase next year to five percent, while leaving the civilian increase at 3.6 percent.
“There is no good reason for discontinuing the tradition of military-civilian pay parity,” Kelley said, “and every good reason to continue it as the federal government increasingly finds itself less and less often the employer of choice among the talented men and women it needs to continue to provide quality service to all Americans.”
She urged passage by the full House and Senate of military-civilian pay parity, and said NTEU will continue to work to see that the administration “understands the importance of paying federal employees a competitive salary that reflects their value and contributions to the nation.”