NAPS joins with other federal employee groups to urge lawmakers to end the federal pay freeze

NAPS has signed on to a letter to members of the United States House of Representatives from the Federal-Postal Coalition urging a “no” vote on H.R. 273. The legislation would extend the current federal pay-freeze through the end of calendar year 2013. The ongoing federal pay freeze impacts Postal employees due to the fact that the current freeze in supervisory and managerial pay is being done in concert with the overall federal pay freeze.

February 11, 2013
U.S. House of Representatives
Washington, DC 20515

Dear Representative,

On behalf of the nearly five million federal and postal workers and annuitants represented by the national member organizations of the Federal-Postal Coalition, we respectfully urge you to oppose H.R. 273, which extends the current two-year federal employee pay freeze through the remainder of the calendar year, and is expected to be voted on this week.

Make no mistake; this vote is about how members of Congress reward hardworking middle-class public servants who take care of our veterans, who guard our borders, who maintain our military’s hardware, who take criminals off our streets and keep them behind bars and who provide the intelligence needed to thwart terrorism. After a two-plus year pay freeze, they have earned, at least, the modest 0.5 percent pay increase proposed by the President.

This is not a vote about member of Congress pay, which has already been frozen through the remainder of the fiscal year as part of the fiscal cliff legislation, P.L.112-240. Extending that pay freeze for only three more months, eight months from now, is no excuse to throw federal employees under the bus again.

As you should know, since the beginning of 2011, the budget savings derived from reduced compensation to the federal workforce has totaled at least $103 billion (about $50,000 per employee), as measured over 10-year budget windows. This includes $60 billion worth of budget savings from the first two years of the pay freeze, and $28 billion worth of savings from the reduced 0.5 percent pay raise proposed by the President scheduled to take effect at the end of March. Based on the Employment Cost Index, federal pay scales should increase by 1.7 percent in January, yet federal pay is frozen at least through March 2013. The federal workforce also contributed $15 billion, achieved through a 2.3 percent increase in newly hired federal employees’ retirement contributions, in last February’s deal to extend the payroll tax holiday and extended unemployment insurance through the remainder of 2012.

H.R. 273 would cancel the very modest 0.5 percent pay raise proposed by the President, forcing federal employees and their families to contribute another $11 billion, for a total of $114 billion since 2011. The attacks need to stop now.

Continuing the pay freeze not only affects financially the hardworking middle-class individuals who make up the federal workforce, it threatens to weaken the quality of our federal civil service. The demands of our government in a constantly modernizing world with increasingly complex threats call for highly-skilled employees who require appropriate compensation. The modest savings that H.R. 273 is trying to squeeze out of the federal workforce today may cost Americans much more tomorrow.

For these reasons, we strongly urge you to vote against H.R. 273

The text of the letter from the Coalition can be found here.