Locality Pay Equity Act Corrects Disparity in Hourly and Salaried Federal Employee Pay Scale
New legislation introduced by Rep. Matt Cartwright of Pennsylvania seeks to address a longstanding inequality in the federal pay scale when it comes to determining locality pay for blue-collar and white-collar federal employees.
In many locations, hourly and salaried workers who work in the same location are treated as if they work in different locations when it comes to calculating local pay rates.
Currently, General Schedule locality boundaries use Census data on commuting patterns, the proper method for defining a local labor market. Blue-collar locality boundaries are drawn according to the placement of military installations in the 1950s, long before federal white-collar workers were paid local differentials.
The bill (HR 3492 – the Locality Pay Equity Act) addresses this disparity by amending Title 5 to limit the number of local wage areas allowable within a General Schedule pay locality. It will only raise wages of hourly wage employees, and would not affect the general schedule (GS) salaried federal employees in any way.
Locality Pay Equity Act May Pass After Federal Employee Pay Scale Increase
This is not the first time that Rep. Cartwright and other members of the Pennsylvania Congressional delegation have sought to get this bill passed. The same bill was introduced in 2013 as the Locality Pay Equity Act (H.R. 2450). But this time, they may just be able to get it passed, because of the recent federal wage hike.
The Federal Prevailing Rate Advisory Committee (FPRAC) voted back in 2010 to end the practice of treating wage and salary federal employees at the same location differently with regard to the drawing of local labor market boundaries. However, the OPM had been sitting on the policy for years, blaming the federal employee pay freeze as an explanation for the long delay in approval of the regulation.
But now, President Obama’s recently announced federal wage increase of 1.3% includes a 1% across the board hike, plus locality pay calculated to ensure a 1.3% federal wage hike for everyone. This makes it very important that the locality pay doesn’t discriminate against blue-collar federal employees, thus increasing the chances of getting the Locality Pay Equity Act passed.
The American Federation of Government Employees (AFGE) supports this legislation. “The Locality Pay Equity Act of 2015 will finally end the practice of treating federal employees in the same work place as if they work in different geographic locations,” said AFGE National President J. David Cox Sr. “It’s just common sense.”
