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Washington, D.C.-The leader of the nation's largest independent union of federal employees today was sworn in as a member of the Federal Salary Council, a nine-member independent body that advises the administration on compensation issues affecting the federal workforce.

President Colleen M. Kelley of the National Treasury Employees Union (NTEU) said she is "particularly pleased to be part of this forum" because of the important role of adequate pay in attracting and retaining the quality workforce necessary to serve the American people.

It appears likely that the federal pay raise for next year will be 3.7 percent. Using that figure, the Salary Council recommended 2.7 percent as a base pay increase, with one percentage point of the amount going into locality pay.

NTEU was in the forefront of the fight for locality pay for federal workers as a way of compensating them for regional cost differentials. The actual amount of the raise for the average federal employee in 2001 would vary in each of the 33 locality pay areas around the country.

Kelley urged again a closing of the gap between private and public sector pay. "That gap continues to be much too large," she said. "As part of its lure in search of the best among us, public service must include pay that is competitive with the private sector."

The linchpin to that effort, the NTEU leader said, should be full implementation of the Federal Employees Pay Comparability Act (FEPCA), a law that became effective in 1994 and called for the closing, in stages over 10 years, of the public-private sector pay gap. This bipartisan measure has not been fully implemented in any year since its effective date.

"FEPCA made good sense when it was enacted," Kelley said, "and it makes even better sense now with the strongest peacetime economy in the country's history," and in light of the contributions of federal employees over the past dozen years not just to a balanced budget but to projected multi-trillion-dollar surpluses.

Kelley noted that federal employees contributed more than $220 billion over those years in pay and benefit increases denied or delayed. "That was more than any other single group," she said.

NTEU represents more than 155,000 employees in 25 agencies and departments.