Union challenges IT pay raise at Florida base

A new pay raise for federal information technology workers is the subject of a labor-management dispute at a Navy facility in Orlando, Fla. On Nov. 3, the Office of Personnel Management announced a pay hike for certain federal information technology employees. OPM said the pay raise is part of an effort to stay competitive with the private sector to recruit and retain talented technology workers. The new pay scale applies only to certain positions at grades GS-5 through GS-12. The occupational series that are covered are computer specialists (GS-334), computer engineers (GS-854) and computer scientists (GS-1550). Union leaders at the Naval Air Warfare Center in Orlando, Fla. have raised concerns that the new rates will cause a pay disparity among employees at the center. On Dec. 7, Lorraine Tuliano, president of American Federation of Government Employees Local 2113, sent a letter to officials at the Naval Air Warfare Center's Training Systems Division questioning the effect the pay raise will have on union members. "We believe most of the employees in the affected GS series at [the Naval Air Warfare Center] are performing essentially the same or similar work to other employees not affected by the new rates," Tuliano said in the letter. Tuliano said some of the employees at the Naval Air Warfare Center who are classified GS-854 jobs are performing the same duties as those classified as GS-855, "yet some of them are getting the pay raise and some of them are not." The union intends to negotiate the pay raise to ensure fair pay for all, Tuliano said. Officials at the Naval Center say it "intends to follow federal policies and guidelines" in implementing new pay rates for IT workers. But in a Dec. 13 letter to Tuliano, Alan Lunin, the Naval Air Warfare Center's labor relations specialist, questioned whether management is required to negotiate the issue with the union. "Pending management's decision on the negotiability issue, no action will be taken in this regard," Lunin wrote. "If there is a decision that this matter requires negotiation with the union, no personnel action will be taken until those negotiations are complete." Management's decision "delays the process" and creates "a hostile environment" between the employees and the union, Tuliano said. "Mr. Lunin's statement...is a clear indication that he knows negotiations are appropriate, and by his actions, intends to mislead employees into believing that [the union] is holding their salaries hostage," Tuliano said. "Our intentions are to ensure that all employees are treated fairly and equitably, and that employees performing essentially the same duties and responsibilities are afforded the same pay." When the raise was announced, IT workers at grades GS-13 and higher, and those in occupational series not covered under the new rates, complained that the new pay scales were unfair.

OPM drew upon several sources of information to come up with the new rates. Among them were agency IT staffing data, demographic information from OPM's central personnel data file and non-federal salary surveys. OPM discovered that turnover rates were most severe at lower grades. They also concluded that not enough data existed to justify giving the raise to other IT-related occupational series, such as GS-301, GS-391, GS-511, and GS-301. "In addition, not all jobs in these occupational series involve IT-related work," OPM said. Tuliano said Naval Warfare Center officials need to review the impact of providing one pay scale to some computer engineers that differs from the pay scale for engineers performing essentially the same job. "It's my job as the union president to look out for all of the engineers and not favor one group over another," she said. "I have to consider everybody."