Sense of House Regarding Rules of Compensation for Civilian Employees and Members of the Uniformed Services of the United States
SENSE OF HOUSE REGARDING RULES OF COMPENSATION FOR CIVILIAN EMPLOYEES AND MEMBERS OF THE UNIFORMED SERVICES OF THE UNITED STATES -- (House of Representatives - March 31, 2004)
Mr. LINDER. Mr. Speaker, by direction of the Committee on Rules, I call up House Resolution 585 and ask for its immediate consideration.
The Clerk read the resolution, as follows:
H. Res. 585
Resolved, That upon the adoption of this resolution it shall be in order to consider in the House the resolution (H. Res. 581) expressing the sense of the House of Representatives regarding rates of compensation for civilian employees and members of the uniformed services of the United States. The resolution shall be considered as read for amendment. The previous question shall be considered as ordered on the resolution and preamble to final adoption without intervening motion except: (1) one hour of debate equally divided and controlled by the chairman and ranking minority member of the Committee on Government Reform; and (2) one motion to recommit which may not contain instructions.
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Mr. HOYER. I thank my friend from Illinois for yielding me this time.
Mr. Speaker, number one, I was the sponsor of the Federal Employee Pay Comparability Act back in 1990. We included it in the Treasury-Postal bill. It was signed by President George Bush. It was signed on the theory that we needed to pay Federal workers comparable wages to their private sector counterparts. In other words, if you are a scientist at NIH or if you are an FBI agent or if you are a CIA agent or you are a defense analyst, a civilian in the Defense Department, you would get paid comparably what your training and responsibilities required in the private sector. That was the whole theory. It was passed overwhelmingly in a bipartisan fashion. In fact, it is the law today.
My friend from Oklahoma has always opposed this adjustment. Always. This is not a new posture for my friend from Oklahoma. He simply does not believe in the comparability act and does not believe in compensating Federal employees fairly.
He talks about ECI. I wish my friend from Oklahoma would listen to these figures because I think he will find them interesting because he misrepresents what the facts are. I know he would be very interested.
Using 1969 as a base year of Federal service pay, average annual wage adjustments and CPI, which are all different figures, we specifically used wages because that is what we are competing with, not CPI. We are competing with wages in the Federal sector. Listen to this and I think you will be shocked.
Since 1969, if you take wages as the base, they are now at 614 percent. If you take CPI, it is at 509 percent over those 44 years. If you take civil service wages, they are 371.8. So they are still about 100 points behind the CPI adjustment, and they are 180 points behind what private sector wages have been adjusted. That is what this is about.
The Federal Salary Council under the law makes findings. They are in the Department of Labor. They make findings. Let me read their findings of this past year:
Based on calculations provided by the Office of Personnel Management, taking a weighted average of two sets of pay gaps, et cetera, the overall gap between base general schedule average salaries locality and non-Federal average salaries surveyed by BLS, the difference between private sector salaries and public sector salaries was 31.8 percent. In other words, for comparable responsibilities, Federal employees were making 31 percent less than their private sector counterparts.
The law said back in 1990 we get to 95 percent of private sector, saying that we are not going to put Federal employees on a par per se with the private sector but the objective is to get to 95 percent of what the private sector makes. We are not there.
The Federal council goes on to say that the overall average pay gap in 2003, including a current average locality rate of 12.12 percent, which of course we do not do, is 17.57 percent. This is the Federal pay council, out of OPM. Therefore, we recommend an overall average locality rate adjustment of 25.54 percent. That is in addition to the ECI.
Let us say the ECI was 1.5 percent which it is not, of course. It is higher than that, substantially, almost twice as much as that. But if we did that, then we would be talking about a 27 percent adjustment in Federal pay pursuant to the law which we have voted for, which the President signed.
The gentleman is shaking his head. He is inaccurate in shaking his head.
I will tell the gentleman further, to show him that he is inaccurate, the President of the United States last year came down and said in his recommendation 2 percent. The Congress gave 4.1 percent. Bush claimed last August he was saving taxpayers $13 billion, not from the 4.1 percent but from the 25 percent. In other words, the President of the United States adopted the premise that the law, in fact, said that the adjustment ought to be $13 billion additional to what the President recommended.
We are not standing here arguing for that proposition, but we are standing here for the proposition, as this Congress has done 17 out of the last 19 years, saying, look, we know we can't get there, but let us not send a message to those civilian employees arrayed in Afghanistan, civilian employees arrayed in Iraq, civilian employees arrayed in Colombia, at risk, NIH researchers, critically important to the health of this Nation, people working at NASA, let us not send them a message that they are second-rate citizens. Let us pay them comparably with what we want to adjust the military. And we ought to adjust the military. I am for that.
So I ask my friends, follow the law. But you do not have to follow all of the law, because if you followed all of the law we would break the bank. What we have said we are going to do is get to comparability. What we want to do in this resolution is to at least get to fairness. Support the Davis-Wolf-Hoyer resolution.
Mr. ISTOOK. Mr. Speaker, I yield 3 minutes to the gentleman from Indiana (Mr. Buyer).
Mr. BUYER. Mr. Speaker, I disagree with the gentleman from Maryland's characterization of Federal civilian employees as second-rate citizens.
Mr. HOYER. Mr. Speaker, the gentleman is not characterizing me as having said that.
Mr. BUYER. I have the time. Do I have the time?
Mr. HOYER. Personal privilege.
The SPEAKER pro tempore (Mr. LaHood). The gentleman from Indiana has the time.
Mr. HOYER. I ask for personal privilege.
The SPEAKER pro tempore. A point of personal privilege is not in order.
The gentleman from Indiana has the time. The gentleman may proceed.
Mr. HOYER. Parliamentary inquiry.
The SPEAKER pro tempore. Does the gentleman from Indiana yield for a parliamentary inquiry?
Mr. BUYER. No, I do not.
The SPEAKER pro tempore. The gentleman from Indiana has the time and may proceed.
[Time: 11:15]
I do not agree with the characterization of Federal civilian employees as second-rate citizens. This should not be an argument about similarities without a difference between the military and the civilian. I just want the gentleman to know I disagree with that.
Today, hundreds of thousands in our Nation proudly serve us around the world in the name of freedom. Unfortunately, some in this body insist that we should not give these uniformed service personnel a raise unless we give the same raises to everyone else in the Federal Government. I disagree because I know that there is a significant difference in the demands that we place upon those in the Armed Forces and those within the regular Federal workforce.
The pay increases for civilian Federal employees and members of the uniformed services should not be designed primarily to address the "spending power" or the "standard-of-living" issues that the gentleman from Maryland (Mr. Hoyer) had just previously raised. Instead, the amount of such pay increase should be sufficient to support our critical efforts to recruit, retain, and reward quality people effectively and responsibly both in the civilian workforce and the uniformed military services.
Our civilian and military forces work under very different circumstances, and their personnel systems reflect that fact. The military is an up-or-out system, which forces members to exit the force if they are not promoted, whereas the Federal workers can remain at a particular grade level indefinitely.
The matching of military pay and rank and the general schedule grades are for protocol purposes only, not for pay equivalency. The pay systems and underlying personnel systems should not be confused. The fact is that the Federal workers are not fleeing for the private sector. The President's budget makes it a proper distinction between the clear need for the raise of the military pay, which he proposes at 3.5 percent, and a lesser priority of the Federal civilian workers at 1.5 percent.
So over the years that I have been here trying to close the pay gap with regard to the military, it has been very difficult. The gentleman from Maryland (Mr. Hoyer) has been a very strong advocate with regard to the civilian pay and increasing that over the years, and I do not want to mischaracterize him.
Mr. HOYER. Mr. Speaker, will the gentleman yield?
Mr. BUYER. I yield to the gentleman from Maryland for clarification.
Mr. HOYER. Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentleman for yielding to me.
I simply wanted to make the point, what I said was treating them disparately implied that they were second-class citizens. The implication in the gentleman's comments was that he disagreed with the implication that they were second class. There was no implication of that, clearly.
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Mr. HOYER. Mr. Speaker, will the gentleman yield?
Mr. MORAN of Virginia. I yield to the gentleman from Maryland.
Mr. HOYER. Mr. Speaker, I also want to congratulate the gentleman from Virginia (Mr. Moran) for his extraordinary leadership in the Committee on the Budget which has led to the 3 past years of this very provision being included in the budget.
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Mr. HOYER. Mr. Speaker, will the gentleman yield?
Mr. TOM DAVIS of Virginia. I am happy to yield to the gentleman from Maryland.
Mr. HOYER. Mr. Speaker, with all due respect to the chairman of my committee, Mr. Chairman, that is inaccurate. It is inaccurate, because, as you know, you did not fund that in subcommittee. In subcommittee, the provision to which you refer had not been added.
So you are inaccurate. You had the money available. And, by the way, as you know, I supported that $500 million so that we could give additional compensation above and beyond what the law requires. The law.
This is not some speculation. The law requires that we give special compensation to high performers. I agree with that premise, as does the gentleman from Virginia (Mr. Tom Davis).
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