Late Friday afternoon, House Republican leadership backtracked on its plans to hold a vote on a federal pay freeze this week. Due to intense pressure from federal employees and their union representatives, the measure has since been removed from the legislative calendar indefinitely.
The measure, H.R. 273, seeks to extend the two-year federal pay freeze through 2013, leaving federal employees without a pay adjustment from 2011-2014. Though Republican leaders intend to bring the vote to the floor at some point in the future, no hard date has been set.
“While this is short-term victory for federal workers who have already given over $100 billion in deficit reduction, the threat to federal workers’ pay and benefits remains very serious,” said NFFE Legislative Director Randy Erwin. “We expect Rep. Ron DeSantis – the primary sponsor of H.R. 273 – and many House Republicans to be pushing for floor action on the pay freeze legislation and other bills targeting federal employees pay and benefits in the very near future. We cannot afford to let our guard down for a single moment. We must continue to remind Congress that federal employees have already done more than their fair share toward deficit reduction. It’s time for Congress to look elsewhere for cuts.”