FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE:
February 25, 2003
Contact: Diane S. Witiak
(202) 639-6419
AFGE TO BUSH: PUT THE EXTRA ONE
PERCENT INTO LOCALITY PAY
(Washington, D.C.)—Bobby L. Harnage, Sr., National President of the
American Federation of Government Employees (AFGE) today issued the following
statement urging that the President stop dragging his feet and issue an
executive order implementing the additional one percent pay increase for
federal employees:
“President Bush has employed
every delaying tactic in the book in his quest to shortchange federal employees
on their salaries. After finally signing into law the 4.1 percent adjustment
that Congress insisted on over Bush’s objections, he is now dragging
his feet just because he can.
“So focused is he on eliminating
taxes for multimillionaires, that he appears to have no appreciation for
the toll his delaying tactics have on the hard-working Americans who make
up the federal workforce, most of whom earn less per year than the targets
of his tax cuts receive in dividends in a single month.
“The additional one percent
in salary adjustment may be beneath this President’s regard, but 1.8
million federal employees need him to fulfill his responsibilities so that
they can get on with their own responsibilities to their families, their
landlords, their grocers, and their credit card companies.
“The Federal Employees Pay
Comparability Act (FEPCA) calls for federal salaries to include both an
ECI-based component and a locality component. The locality component is
designed to recognize that in order for federal pay to achieve comparability
with private sector pay, differences in local labor market rates should
be reflected in federal salary adjustments. As such, the President should
allocate the additional one percent provided in the FY 2003 omnibus bill
to locality pay. And he should do so immediately, without further delay.”
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