Unions Archives

The legislation passed by the House on Wednesday that would extend the current two-year pay freeze for federal workers through 2013 is premised on a selective understanding of federal pay data.

The bill (H.R. 3835), introduced by Rep. Sean Duffy, R-Wis., would extend the salary freeze for federal employees and members of Congress, eliminating cost of living adjustments until the end of 2013.

House Republicans defended the measure on the House floor, citing a recent Congressional Budget Office report that found federal workers made 16 percent more in average pay and benefits than private sector employees. But the CBO also found that those with professional and doctorate-level degrees actually earn about 23 percent less than those with the same degrees in the private sector.

More specifically, federal IT workers also fall behind their private sector counterparts on pay. A survey released last week by IT jobs website Dice.com found that salaries for government IT workers were slightly below the national average. Salaries for government tech workers averaged $79,605 in 2011, while the average salary for tech workers in all industries was $81,327, Dice found.

Federal unions voiced their opposition to the bill, noting that extending the pay freeze could have a significant impact on federal recruitment and retention.

"At a time when our nation faces threats both foreign and domestic, military and monetary, we cannot afford a second rate federal workforce defending our borders, supporting our troops overseas and ensuring the safety of our food supply," said William Dougan, president of the National Federation of Federal Employees. "We cannot afford to undermine pay and retirement benefits for middle class workers with increasingly precarious economic situations."

Federal employees with professional or doctorate degrees earn about 23 percent less than those with the same degrees in the private sector, according to a new report by the Congressional Budget Office.

The report, released Monday, found that overall, federal employees are paid an average of 16 percent more in pay and benefits than their private sector counterparts. Federal employees with a high school diploma, for example, earned 21 percent more than private sector employees with similar education levels, while federal workers with a bachelors degree earned about the same as those in the private sector. Federal workers in those two groups also enjoyed better benefits than those in the private sector, with benefits 72 percent higher for federal employees with a high school diploma and 46 percent higher for federal employees with a bachelor's degree.

But federal workers with professional, masters or doctorate-level degrees earned an average of about 23 percent less than their private sector counterparts, the study found. Average benefits for professional and doctorate-level employees were about the same in the two sectors.

CBO used data for 2005 through 2010 reported by a sample of households and employers to estimate differences between the cost of wages and benefits for federal employees and the cost of wages and benefits for similar private-sector employees.

CBO's study also noted that studies of federal pay like one by the American Enterprise Institute, which claimed that federal workers earn 61 percent more in pay, benefits and extra job security than their private counterparts, "overstates the differences between the cost of employing federal workers and similar private sector workers because the dispersion of wages (the range from low to high wages) differs between those two groups."

Meanwhile, the most common occupations within the Defense Department and the government at large were information technology workers as well as program analysts, program administrators and criminal investigators.

Colleen Kelley, president of the National Treasury Employees Union, agreed with the conclusion that highly-educated workers earn significantly less than their private counterparts, but cautioned against accepting other segments of the CBO report. "CBO is clearly the expert on Congressional budget scoring, but pay comparisons are not its principal expertise; that is the expertise of the Bureau of Labor Statistics," she said, noting that BLS data have shown a consistent pay gap of 26 percent in favor of the private sector when comparing similar public and private sector jobs.

Kelley also questioned the other segments of the study, and whether Congress would want to cut the salaries of the lowest paid workers by the amounts the report claims are overpaid. "That would mean cutting the salary of a clerk earning $20,000 a year by 20 percent down to $16,000 while increasing the salary of a highly-paid manager making $200,000 by 20 percent to $240,000," she said.

What are your thoughts on the study, as it compares to other studies on federal pay, including BLS data and the report by the American Enterprise Institute?

Salaries for government IT workers were slightly below the national average in 2011, giving agencies less of a competitive edge when it comes to recruiting top notch IT skills, according to a new survey by Dice.

Dice's 2011-2012 salary survey found that salaries for government tech workers averaged $79,605 in 2011, slightly below the average salary for tech workers in all industries, which came in at $81,327.

Government and private sector IT professionals in the aerospace and defense industries, however, fared far better than average when it came to pay in 2011. Those workers earned an average of $88,232 in 2011, the survey found.

"Defense spending is down from where it's been in previous years, but it's still enormous," said Tom Silver, senior vice president of Dice, on Wednesday. "But there may be a perceived risk of working in a government position that perhaps wasn't there before."

Meanwhile, tech jobs in all sectors in the Washington, D.C., and Baltimore metro area are also down significantly, Silver said. For example, jobs in the area were up 50 percent in 2010, but in 2011, jobs were actually down by 17 percent, he said. But the area still is the second biggest tech job market in the nation with more than 7,500 jobs posted last year, Silver added.

With government IT salaries below the national average, Silver stressed that government must focus on career development in order to recruit and retain critical IT skills going forward. "I think the government has to position itself in a place that provides an environment for tech workers to grow, develop and evolve their skills around the latest and greatest technology," he said. "Tech workers today are concerned about any job they take, not only about what they will be working on today, but what will keep their skills up to date going forward."

Despite tight budgets, Silver argued that federal IT workers, particularly those with in-demand skills, have a bright future. "Although there are things that are changing from what a government job used to be, as a skilled tech worker, you're still in a pretty good spot," Silver said. "Budgets are still enormous, even if they're down from where they've been, and I think that's what tech workers should focus on."

Technology professionals on average earned salary increases of more than 2 percent in 2011, their largest annual salary growth since 2008, according to a new survey by Dice.com.

Dice's 2011-2012 annual salary survey of more than 18,000 IT professionals found that after two years of wages remaining nearly flat, tech professionals finally saw average increases of more than 2 percent, boosting their average annual salary to $81,327 from $79,384 in 2010.

Tech professionals in the private sector also saw a considerable jump in the size of average bonuses, which were up eight percent to $8,769 in 2011. The number of tech professionals receiving bonuses last year also increased to 32 percent, compared with 29 percent in 2010 and 24 percent in 2009. The industries most likely to pay out bonuses were telecom, hardware, banking, utilities/energy and software, the survey found.

These increases come as all federal workers are under a two-year freeze on across-the-board pay increases. The two-year pay freeze does not apply to performance awards and bonuses, promotions, within-grade increases, quality step increases and other forms of incentive pay for federal workers.

Still, despite the average rise in overall pay, entry-level salaries continue to push downward, Dice found. Professionals who generally saw their wages increase were those with 11 or more years of experience in their field.

Technology professionals in Silicon Valley continue to be the most well-paid, with annual salaries topping six figures for the first time since Dice began the survey a decade ago. Tech workers in Silicon Valley brought home an average annual salary of $104,195 in 2011, up 5 percent over last year. Thirty-eight percent of tech professionals in the valley also received bonuses averaging $12,450.

Average salaries in the Washington D.C./Baltimore area also increased 6 percent in 2011, to $94,317. Other areas seeing growth in tech salaries were Austin ($89,419), Portland ($82,055) and Houston ($89,307).

"Conventional wisdom says that as Silicon Valley goes, so goes the tech world," said Tom Silver, "Nationally, we're seeing stiffer competition and higher salaries for tech pros with the right skill sets and the right experience level."

How do your skills, salary and other incentives stack up? Do the survey results make you more satisfied with your government IT job, or do they make you want to jump ship for the private sector?

Federal budget cuts are causing many agencies to scrap large traditional office spaces for open workstations, telework, and "office hoteling," where employees reserve desks as they need them. Federal Times reports that Bart Bush, the assistant commissioner for the Office of Client Solutions at the General Services Administration, is leading an effort to reduce GSA's real estate footprint -- potentially saving millions of dollars in leasing. The effort includes cutting the square footage of office space from 29,120 to 14,065 for about 170 employees.

The new hoteling concept means employees won't have their own desks, but rather will be required to reserve workstations when they plan to be in the office. The trend will mean scrapping the nameplates mounted on feds' doors in favor of emphasizing mobile technology, Bush told Federal Times. "Some agencies might promote more telework, or create more open spaces or rely more heavily on technology," he said.

Is your agency making changes to reduce its real estate footprint, in part by emphasizing hoteling, telework and mobile technology? What are your thoughts on the changes?

Members of Generation Y are using social networking websites like Facebook for personal over professional reasons, yet most are using their profiles as an extension of professional life, according to a new study by branding firm Millennial Branding.

The study of nearly 4 million Facebook profiles from Identified.com's database found that Generation Y workers (those age 18 to 29) are using Facebook mostly to socialize with family and friends. Yet many still use the website to connect with work, with most Millenials each having an average of 16 co-workers as friends on Facebook.

"Gen-Y needs to be aware that what they publish online can come back to haunt them in the workplace," said Dan Schawbel, founder of Millenial Branding. "Gen-Y managers and co-workers have insight into their social lives, which could create an awkward workplace setting or even result in a termination."

In addition, 80 percent of Gen Y lists at least one school entry on their Facebook profiles, while only 36 percent list a job entry, meaning many define themselves by their college instead of their workplace, the study found.

Gen Y workers also have been dubbed the entrepreneurial generation, and that is also evidenced by the study: "owner" was the fifth most popular job title for Gen Y. In addition, only 7 percent of Gen Y works at a Fortune 500 company, mostly because startups are dominating the workforce for their demographic, particularly in today's economy, the study found.

Meanwhile, the government/military was among the top industries employing Gen Y workers, with 4.5 percent of those surveyed citing it as their career field. Other top industries for Gen Y workers were travel and hospitality (7.2 percent), consumer products (6.7 percent) and technology (4.4 percent).

The U.S. military was the largest employer of Generation Y overall, while Deloitte was the largest corporate employer, the study found.

Perhaps most interestingly, Gen Y will form 75 percent of the workforce by 2025, and the study suggests that Gen Yers already are working to shape corporate culture and expectations.

What are your thoughts? Is the line between personal and professional life beginning to blur? Is Gen Y already working to shape your agency's culture?

Federal employees have been under a two-year freeze to annual across-the-board pay increases since last year, and the prospects for next year are not looking much brighter: President Obama is set to propose a 0.5 percent pay increase as part of his 2013 budget proposal, the Washington Post reports.

According to two senior administration officials familiar with the plans, Obama will propose the 0.5 percent pay increase for federal workers in his 2013 budget proposal, set to be released in February. The pay increase would be the first automatic, across-the-board pay increase for feds since Obama ordered a two-year pay freeze in late 2010.

Republicans on Capitol Hill have called for extending the two-year pay freeze for an additional year and even up to an additional three years. They also have proposed eliminating step increases, cutting the workforce by 10 percent through attrition and cutting some federal retirement benefits.

"A permanent pay freeze is not an acceptable policy," one senior administration official told the Post on Friday. "While modest, a 0.5 percent increase reflects the belt-tightening we must do in these difficult times."

The modest increase in federal pay would save about $28 billion over the next decade and $2 billion in fiscal 2013 under the caps authorized by budget control measures passed last summer, officials said.

Federal employees would still be eligible for other pay increases, such as those for longevity, performance and promotions, as has been the case during the current two-year federal pay freeze.

What are your thoughts on the proposed 0.5 percent pay increase for 2013?

Some IT managers are among the highest paid employees in the federal government, with a few making more than $200,000 per year, according to an analysis by WikiOrgCharts.com.

The analysis found that the top 1,000 federal salaries in 2011 ranged from $216,345 to $350,000, with the list topped mostly by professionals in the medical or legal fields. Only five federal IT managers made the top 1,000 list.

The highest federal earner in IT was Glenn Valcour, an IT manager at the Farm Credit Administration, who made $241,583 in 2011, earning him a spot at number 279. Three IT managers at the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation made the top 1,000 list, with salaries ranging from $216,680 to $238,325. Charles Boucher, an IT manager at the Securities and Exchange Commission, took the 510th spot, with a salary of $230,700 in 2011.

Topping the 2011 list of top earners was Dr. Electron Kebebew, a medical officer at the National Institutes of Health, who earned $350,000 this year. The top 50 federal earners were all in the medical field, mostly working at NIH. Other top earners included employees at the Farm Credit Administration, FDIC and SEC.

WikiOrgCharts, which is a cloud-based tool for business networking, sought the salary information through a Freedom of Information Act request and developed a crowdsourced database that contains profiles of 1.2 million federal employees.

What are your thoughts on the top earners list? Should IT managers have held more of the top spots, particularly given the high salaries and steep competition with the private sector?

Federal employees make an average of 26 percent less than their private sector counterparts, according to Bureau of Labor Statistics data released Friday.

The BLS data, which was submitted to the Federal Salary Council, an independent group of salary experts, union representatives and federal officials that makes determinations each year on the allocations of locality pay, showed that the average gap widened by 2.25 percentage points over last year in favor of private sector workers.

Federal employees are currently in the midst of a two-year pay freeze that started in 2011. In May, the Presidents Pay Agent decided that federal workers would not receive an increase in locality pay in 2012.

Meanwhile, some lawmakers are calling for an extension of the current pay freeze, despite the BLS findings. Republican members of the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee called on the deficit reduction super committee to extend the two-year civilian pay freeze for an additional three years and eliminate step increases. Bipartisan leaders in the Senate also called for the committee to extend the current two-year freeze for an additional year and that federal pension contributions by federal employees increase by 1.2 percent.

In addition, a report released last month by Robert Half International found that technology jobs in the private sector are expected to see the largest salary gains among all job fields in the coming year, with IT salaries projected to rise an average of 4.5 percent.

The pay gap may "come as a surprise to those in Congress calling for draconian cuts to federal pay and benefits as a means to 'bring federal compensation more in line with the private sector,'" said William Dougan, president of the National Federation of Federal Employees. "The reality is that bringing federal compensation practices in line with the private sector would require a hefty pay increase for federal workers."

Cuts to federal pay could hurt government programs over time, the Congressional Budget Office director said Wednesday to members of the super committee tasked with cutting the federal budget deficit.

CBO Director Doug Elmendorf noted at a hearing of the Joint Select Committee on Deficit Reduction that proposals to freeze federal pay rates could have an adverse impact on government programs going forward.

"Lowering pay rates for federal civilian employees could hamper efforts to recruit and retain workers [particularly in some occupations], which could reduce the overall skill level of the federal workforce over time," Elmendorf said. "Having fewer federal workers would probably lower the levels of service that federal agencies provide to the public, unless cuts in the agencies' workforce were accompanied by actions to enhance productivity."

There is little doubt that information technology is one of the major career fields that would be adversely impacted by freezing federal pay, particularly as recent research shows that salaries for private sector tech jobs will rise an average of 4.5 percent in 2012, more than any other job field.

Federal worker proposals sent to the super committee include extending the two-year civilian pay freeze for up to an additional three years, eliminating step increases, cutting the workforce by 10 percent through attrition and cutting several federal retirement benefits.