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Washington, D.C.—With government figures showing a sharply increased workload for the Securities & Exchange Commission (SEC) over the past decade even as employee turnover at the agency continues to rise because of low pay, the nation’s economy can no longer afford delay in negotiating a fair collective bargaining agreement for SEC workers, including pay parity, the head of the union representing 2,000 SEC employees told a Senate subcommittee today.

President Colleen M. Kelley of the National Treasury Employees Union (NTEU) also called on the full Senate to “follow the guidance” in the Senate Budget Committee resolution for fiscal 2003 calling for an additional $220 million for the SEC.

That, President Kelley said, would not only provide for full implementation of pay parity for SEC employees with those at other federal financial regulatory agencies, as called for in NTEU-supported legislation approved earlier this year, it would permit expansion of the agency’s staff “to serve the needs of the investor and the public.”

In testimony on SEC human capital problems submitted to the Senate Subcommittee on Oversight of Government Management, President Kelley characterized the administration’s SEC budget request for fiscal 2003 as “woefully inadequate,” particularly in light of the “clear congressional intent” that SEC employees be paid on a par with federal employees performing similar functions.

“Delay in coming to a fair and just agreement on pay between SEC management and bargaining unit employees is the critical priority in resolving the recruitment and retention problems at the SEC,” the NTEU leader told the Senate subcommittee.

“This agency touches the retirement and economic security of millions of citizens,” she said. “Recent events have made it clear that business as usual is not an option at the SEC,” the NTEU leader added.

She pointed to General Accounting Office (GAO) figures identifying the spiraling loss of expertise and talent at the agency as its workload over the past decade—as reflected in “steady increases” in filings, complaints, inquiries, investigations, examinations and other duties—rose by about 80 percent, while the staff increased only about 20 percent.

President Kelley also was critical of indications that the SEC intends to move ahead to increase the pay of supervisors before coming to agreement with NTEU on that issue covering bargaining unit employees. “Agreement and implementation of pay parity for bargaining unit employees should be the priority for this agency,” she said. “The pace of negotiations” on this issue, and indications of the attention being given to the pay of managers, “sends the wrong signal to employees,” the union leader said.

Kelley recounted for the subcommittee the recent history of efforts by NTEU to work with the agency to implement pay parity in ways that will address its problems of high turnover and low employee morale. For example, Kelley said, when it was clear that pay parity legislation would win congressional approval, NTEU suggested that the union and agency begin informal discussions on its implementation—an idea the agency rejected, despite having hired an outside consultant to advise it on the issue.

Following that, she said, NTEU formed a smaller bargaining team, separate from the one seeking to reach agreement on a term labor contract with the agency, to focus solely on pay parity. Kelley assigned experienced, senior-level negotiators to this team with full authority to reach a speedy conclusion on this issue, she told the subcommittee, but the agency failed to do the same. “The SEC team includes no executives or Senior Executive Service-level individuals,” she said.

The American public, she said, “deserve better” on these key issues than the SEC has been willing to do thus far.

NTEU is the largest independent federal union, representing some 150,000 employees in 25 agencies and departments.