6/15/10: NTEU National President Colleen Kelley today took sharp issue with a proposed amendment to Senate tax legislation that would freeze the pay of federal salaries and cap the number of federal employees.

In this letter to every senator, President Kelley said there is no need to freeze the pay of frontline federal workers—many of whom are suffering in difficult economic circumstances with spouses or other family members unemployed. At the same time, she warned that a freeze on the number of employees would “likely dramatically increase the number of contractors,” at considerable expense to taxpayers. "Capping the number of federal employees is an ideological response that will end up costing the government more money for less quality,” Kelley said.

She expressed the union’s strong opposition to a proposed amendment by Sen. Tom Coburn (R-Okla.) to H.R. 4213, the tax extenders legislation, as well as to similar language contained in a proposed substitute amendment to the bill expected to be offered by Sen. John Thune (R-S.D.).

President Kelley noted, first, that the White House has proposed only a modest 1.4 percent pay raise in 2011 for federal civilian employees, and, second, that this raise is based on the Employment Cost Index, which measures wage increases in the private sector.

The proposed amendments would impact a wide range of civil servants, Kelley said, including many who work side-by-side with members of the military on behalf of the country. “Its effect would reach Customs and Border Protection Officers, who protect our ports of entry; employees who monitor food safety at the Food and Drug Administration; claims and appeals representatives who deal with the elderly and disabled at the Social Security Administration; Environmental Protection Agency scientists who help protect our environment; and many others,” she wrote.

Separately, the NTEU leader also pointed out that surveys conducted by the respected Bureau of Labor Statistics put the present public-private sector pay gap at 22 percent, on average, in favor of private sector workers.

“The pay gap in favor of the private sector is real,” Kelley said, “and is a significant factor in federal agency efforts to recruit and retain the high-quality workers they need to perform their vital and increasingly-complex duties on behalf of the public. We should not be taking any steps that make that effort any more difficult than it already is.”

The Coburn amendment also contains language dealing with tax delinquencies by federal employees. President Kelley called that effort “redundant,” noting “there is already a very successful employee garnishment plan in effect.”

In March, Kelley offered House testimony on a similar proposal. “At that hearing,” she wrote to senators, “the Internal Revenue Service testified that there were already sufficient laws and procedures in place to address tax debts owed by federal employees.”

In recent weeks, both the House and Senate have rejected other efforts to freeze the pay of federal civilian workers.