FAA rejects employees’ attempt to settle salary cap lawsuit

A group of Federal Aviation Administration employees that is suing the agency over their capped salaries was turned down this month in an attempt to settle the matter before it reached court.

"We wanted to see if we could resolve this at the lowest level possible, without incurring a lot of expense on both sides," said Tim O'Hara, a veteran agency manager and the leader of the group.

Under the FAA's performance pay system, more than 800 long-term employees have reached the top of their pay bands and are not eligible for base salary increases. They are able to receive lump-sum annual awards for good performance.

At the same time, however, thousands of other FAA employees are exempt from this rule because of union agreements or because they already were above the maximum pay limit when the rule on pay caps went into effect. Employees with frozen base salaries have said that the different compensation regulations are unfair, and that they believe they are losing thousands of dollars in retirement benefits, locality pay increases and overtime pay.

Agency officials have acknowledged the employees' concerns, but FAA Administrator Marion Blakey has said she will not take action on the pay bands because market surveys show that FAA workers are paid more than their counterparts in the aviation industry. Instead, officials want to gradually move other employees fully into the pay-band system.

On Feb. 25, O'Hara and other employees filed a class-action lawsuit against the FAA alleging age discrimination. Almost all of the employees that have hit the top of their pay bands and had their base salaries capped are more than 40 years old. The initial stage of the class action was a "request for counseling"-a request to meet outside of court to negotiate the employees' concerns. On March 1, the agency told O'Hara that the request had been denied.

"Frankly, I was impressed by the speed of our rejection," O'Hara said. "I've never seen them move that fast except in case of natural disaster."

Agency officials said they could not comment on current litigation.

According to O'Hara, the employee group has collected about $50,000 for its legal fund and retained the services of the Washington-based law firm Beins, Axelrod, & Kraft. The matter is to be forwarded to the Transportation Department and then on to the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission.

"They don't want to meet with us and talk about a resolution," O'Hara said. "But we are mad. We are angry and we intend to try and achieve a more equitable solution on this, instead of being told, 'You are never going to see a pay raise again.' "