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The National Federation of Federal Employees (NFFE) is backing the Federal Adjustment of Income Rates (FAIR) Act, H.R. 4306, legislation to provide federal workers with a 3.3 percent pay adjustment in 2015 instead of the 1 percent pay adjustment proposed in the President’s budget earlier this year. This legislation was introduced on March 27, 2014 by Congressman Gerry Connolly (D-VA) along with Congressmen Jim Moran (D-VA), Elijah Cummings (D-MD), John Tierney (D-MA) and other House members.
“By investing in the federal government’s most valuable resource — its talented workforce — the FAIR Act would begin repairing the significant damage that has been wrought on our overworked, underpaid and unappreciated career civil service, while helping to ensure we can attract the best and the brightest to build the federal workforce of the future,” Connolly said in a statement.
Federal workers suffered three years of frozen pay rates from 2011-2013, and received an inadequate 1 percent pay adjustment in 2014. Just a 1 percent pay adjustment over a four-year span has been devastating to federal workers whose average pay now lags 35 percent behind workers performing the same jobs in the private sector according to a recent analysis from the Bureau of Labor Statistics. Federal workers have seen their buying power greatly eroded over the last four years due to pay adjustments that were nonexistent or failed to keep pace with inflation. Passage of the FAIR Act would keep this worrisome trend from continuing in 2015.
“NFFE strongly supports the FAIR Act,” said William R. Dougan, National President of the National Federation of Federal Employees. “Here is the bottom line: with a 1 percent pay adjustment in 2015, real incomes for federal workers will continue to shrink. After all the sacrifices federal employees have made in recent years, further eroding their real incomes is unacceptable. Federal workers deserve better. The FAIR Act is a reasonable measure that would be a much-needed step in the right direction for federal workers.”
Every NFFE-IAM member is encouraged to contact his/her member of Congress to urge them to support this important legislation. Call your member of Congress in the U.S. House of Representatives and urge them to support the FAIR Act (H.R. 4306).
When contacting members of Congress, be sure to do so as a constituent, on your own time, using your own phone.
You can be directed to your member of Congress by calling the Capitol Switchboard at (202) 224-3121.