National President Dougan: "Federal Workers Have Earned a Pay Adjustment That Reflects the Increased Cost of Living."
Tuesday, January 13, 2015
For full
release, click here.
Washington, D.C. – Today, Rep. Gerald Connolly (D-Va.) plans to introduce legislation to provide federal employees a 3.8 percent pay adjustment. William R. Dougan, National President of the National Federation of Federal Employees, the oldest federal employee union representing 110,000 federal workers throughout the U.S., issued the following statement on the introduced legislation:
Washington, D.C. – Today, Rep. Gerald Connolly (D-Va.) plans to introduce legislation to provide federal employees a 3.8 percent pay adjustment. William R. Dougan, National President of the National Federation of Federal Employees, the oldest federal employee union representing 110,000 federal workers throughout the U.S., issued the following statement on the introduced legislation:
"NFFE strongly supports
Congressman Connolly’s bill to provide
federal employees a well-earned and much-needed
3.8 percent pay adjustment in 2016. In the past
two years, Congress and the President have
enacted woefully insufficient one percent pay
adjustments that were preceded by three years
of pay freezes. In the last five years, federal
employees have lost a significant amount of
buying power due to pay adjustments failing to
keep up with basic inflation. Congressman
Connolly and the long list of influential
co-sponsors of the Federal Adjustment of Income
Rates (FAIR) Act of 2015 are working to address
this significant problem. NFFE thanks
Congressman Connolly, and we will work with the
Congressman to provide this relief to a federal
workforce that has had Congress attempt to
balance the federal budget on their backs in
recent years."
"With the current pay disparity
between federal and private sector employees at
35 percent and growing, the federal workforce
needs a significant kick start in order to
recruit and retain the qualified workforce
federal agencies need to do the business of the
American people. As the cost of living
increases for all Americans, federal employees
have been left behind with stagnate wages. A
3.8 percent pay adjustment is a step in the
right direction to account for the increased
cost of living over the past years. Federal
workers have earned a pay adjustment that
reflects the increased cost of
living."
"After being treated like a punching
bag for years by too many members of Congress,
it is no wonder that the federal employee
viewpoint survey is showing decreasing
workplace morale. Now more than ever, we
genuinely hope members of Congress understand
the importance of addressing the dwindling
morale of federal employees. Raising morale,
through legislation like the FAIR Act, will
allow the government to recruit and retain
top-tier candidates, which results in better
services to the citizens of our
country."
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Established in 1917, the National
Federation of Federal Employees is the oldest
union representing civil service federal
employees. NFFE represents 110,000
federal employees in 35 departments and
agencies government-wide, including the
majority of federal wildland firefighters. NFFE
is affiliated with the International
Association of Machinists and Aerospace
Workers, AFL-CIO. For more information, go to
www.nffe.org.
*A previous version of this release referred to the bill as bipartisan. The FAIR Act from the 113th Congress had only democratic co-sponsors.