FAA tech workers file pay grievance

Computer specialists at the Federal Aviation Administration are being left out of a governmentwide pay raise for information technology workers, according to a grievance filed Jan. 31 by the Professional Airways Systems Specialists (PASS) union. PASS represents more than 11,000 FAA and Defense Department employees. The Office of Personnel Management announced the new pay hike in early November. It applies only to certain positions at grades GS-5 through GS-12 in covered occupational series. They are: computer specialists (GS-334), computer engineers (GS-854) and computer scientists (GS-1550). The pay raise became effective in January. PASS officials say a group of GS-334 employees at the FAA should automatically get the raise. But agency officials said the pay raise isn't automatic for FAA employees. In 1996 Congress authorized the FAA to establish its own pay system that is separate from the government's General Schedule. Tammy Jones, an FAA spokeswoman, said the union must negotiate all pay changes, because the FAA doesn't operate by the Office of Personnel Management's pay rules. Unions must negotiate a pay raise for bargaining unit employees, she said. But PASS General Counsel Michael Derby argued that the employees covered by the grievance remain under the old General Schedule pay system, and therefore qualify for the governmentwide raise. "The grievance covers the bargaining units that we have not negotiated a new contract for yet," he said. FAA officials have yet to formally respond to the grievance or to a letter PASS sent to the agency in December in regard to the raise, said Derby. "It's not a good idea to have the people overseeing the computer that the air traffic controller is using being the lowest-paid in the government," Derby said. "I want happy computer specialists." While pay raises are generally considered good news, this one has caused an uproar in the IT community. Employees in different occupational series, at higher pay grades, and those that are paid under personnel systems other than the General Schedule felt cheated because they did not qualify for the raise. A dispute concerning the IT pay raise for employees of the Naval Air Warfare Center in Orlando, Fla., was recently settled. Officials at the Navy facility decided to convert qualified employees in grades GS-5 to GS-12 into a covered occupational series to make them eligible for the pay raise.