WP: GAO and Its New Union Reach Agreement on Raises

[Omaha Steve]

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2008/02/11/AR2008021102816.html?nav=hcmodule

By Stephen Barr
Tuesday, February 12, 2008; Page D04

The Government Accountability Office and its new union have reached a tentative agreement that will guarantee at least a 4.49 percent pay raise this year to GAO employees who are meeting job expectations.

Under the agreement, GAO employees will receive a 3.5 percent across-the-board increase. Most of the unionized employees also will receive an additional performance-based raise, worth an average 2.75 percent, that will increase their salary more than the guaranteed 4.49 percent.


GAO head David Walker said he "remains committed to the principle of pay parity" and will extend the annual pay raise to the agency's non-union staff. (By Brendan Smialowski -- Getty Images)


The raise is the first negotiated between the agency and the GAO Employees Organization, which is affiliated with the International Federation of Professional and Technical Engineers. GAO analysts formed the union last year because of concerns about the fairness of a 2005-06 restructuring of compensation practices at the GAO and the way managers conduct performance evaluations.

The employee complaints led to a rare joint hearing of the House and Senate federal workforce subcommittees last May, and it underscored the difficult nature of overhauling pay and personnel systems in the federal government.

Many Defense Department employees covered by the new National Security Personnel System, which features performance-based pay, also have been skeptical of performance-based pay, and Congress stepped in last year to modify the system to ensure that NSPS employees get 60 percent of the government-wide increase every year.

The GAO has about 3,000 employees, with about 1,400 unionized workers eligible for what the agency called the "floor guarantee," or raise of 4.49 percent if the combined across-the-board raise and performance raise fall short of that.

FULL story at link.