BAND TOGETHER
COMMUNIQUE
January 5,
2009
2009
Pay Adjustment Ratified!
The 2009 Annual Pay Adjustment
Agreement has been ratified
by the Union membership, with 99 percent of the votes cast in
favor! The pay adjustments spelled out in the agreement are to
be instituted in the first pay period of 2009.
According to the
agreement, GAO will provide an annual adjustment to our current
base salary. The adjustment will be equivalent to the
General Schedule total increase (including locality) for the GS
locality pay area in which each field office is located and will
be processed in the first pay period of 2009. The
“2009 GS Locality Increases
by GAO Office Location”
[PDF] can be viewed at our website www.gaoanalysts.org.
These increases
will be provided without regard to any salary limitation, such
as salary caps or the Band IIB “speed bump.”
This agreement applies to all bargaining unit employees,
including PDP and CAPP. GAO has decided to provide
the same annual adjustment to employees outside of the
bargaining unit. For example, the Washington DC area GS
locality adjustment is 4.78 percent, so all employees at HQ will
receive a 4.78 percent increase in their base salary. In another
example, San Francisco's GS locality adjustment is 4.31 percent,
so all employees in San Francisco will receive a 4.31 percent
increase in their salary. Receiving an annual adjustment
equivalent to the GS total increase by locality in the first pay
period represents a big improvement for many employees.
For developmental employees in particular, many of whom have
received an annual adjustment that was less than the GS
locality-adjusted increase for their pay area in recent years,
it is a big win.
Why did we go
this way?
During
this year and last year’s negotiations, our union worked
toward obtaining pay parity with our federal counterparts, at a
minimum. In the past, annual adjustments for most GAO
employees were lower than their federal counterparts. The 2009
GAO annual adjustment achieves parity with other federal
employees receiving the GS locality-based annual
adjustment.
Why do different locations receive different
annual adjustments?
The GS system,
under which most of the federal government operates, determines
changes in cost of labor by location every year. By
receiving the GS locality-based annual adjustment, GAO employees
will get the same annual adjustment rate increase as other
federal employees. Note that last year GAO employees
received an annual adjustment equal to the national
“average” GS locality-based increase, which was
higher than management initially proposed, but was lower than
what most GAO employees would have received if the relevant GS
locality-based increase for each office had been
used.
How does the
annual adjustment interact with GAO zone
differentials?
Although there is
no change in the GAO geographic zone differentials, since this
year’s agreement applies a different annual adjustment to
employees in each locality, it does change the relative rates
that current employees are paid in different localities.
For example, although Washington D.C. and Chicago employees are
both in GAO geographic zone 3, with the same salary ranges,
employees in Washington D.C. will receive a greater annual
adjustment rate increase than those in Chicago, reflecting the
GS determination that Washington D.C. had a greater increase in
the cost of labor than Chicago over the last year. While
the GAO negotiating team felt that the agreement to use GS
locality adjustments represented a major step forward toward
achieving pay parity with other federal employees, it recognizes
that there are incongruities between the GAO zone differential
system and the GS locality system, and plans to address locality
pay issues for future years as part of master bargaining
negotiations.
What is the
relationship between the annual adjustment and the floor
guarantee?
The GAO Act
of 2008 includes a guarantee that all employees will receive a
total pay increase, from a combination of the annual increase
and performance based increase, that is at least equivalent to
the GS increase by locality. In effect, GAO employees are
receiving the full floor guarantee through this year’s
annual adjustment alone! The additional amount of
performance-based compensation that employees receive (to be
determined through subsequent negotiations) will all be in
excess of the floor guarantee.
What about my
performance-based compensation adjustment?
The agreement
provides that negotiations on performance-based compensation
will begin after GAO receives its final FY 2009
appropriation. The agreement also provides that the
performance-based compensation will be retroactive to the first
pay period in January. GAO management, Union negotiating team,
and you (through your ratification vote) were all in agreement
that it was best to provide an annual increase as soon as
possible, and follow up with the performance-based increase
later.
Thank you to all those
who voted! If you have questions or concerns, please send
an email ICquestions@gaoanalysts.org. For more information on joining the Union, please
visit the Web site at www.gaoanalysts.org. Our union is a democratic organization, and so to
ensure we represent the interests of all employees, we encourage
you to join and have a voice.
