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Washington, D.C: -- The nation's largest independent union of federal workers today applauded President Clinton's allocation of the January 1 federal employees' pay raise into across?the?board and locality components, but repeated its earlier contention that the overall raise fails to close the dangerous gap between public and private sector pay.

Robert M. Tobias, president of the National Treasury Employees Union (NTEU), welcomed the president's action in providing a 3.1 percent pay increase to all general schedule federal workers, with an additional 0.5 percent payable as locality pay to reflect regional labor costs around the nation, but said there remains a sizeable public?private sector pay gap that must be closed.

Tobias said "the administration continues to play with fire??running the risk of a serious loss of talent and experience to the private sector" because federal pay continues to lag significantly behind that of private sector employees. NTEU represents more than 155,000 employees in 20 government agencies and departments.

Tobias said that the president's actions for calendar 1999, along with his statement of several months ago that he would recommend a 4.4 percent federal pay increase for the year

2000, are "positive but insufficient steps" toward meeting the mandates of the 1994 Federal Employees Pay Comparability Act (FEPCA), a bipartisan measure which called for the closing in stages over 10 years of the public?private pay gap. That mandate has been largely ignored since its passage.

The NTEU president noted the continuing strength in the U.S. economy, combined with low inflation and increasing budget surpluses as reasons why now is the best time in many years "to begin the long?overdue task of paying federal employees what they earn with their everyday dedication and professionalism."