Just to feed the opposition argument on why Clinton-DLC folks are in fact scum, here in the name of equal time is a recent article on Clinton screwing federal workers on pay. -- NN ======================================
Federal Employees Get Raise
By DEB RIECHMANN
.c The Associated Press
WASHINGTON (AP) - About 1.8 million of the federal government's civilian
workers will get a 3.7 percent pay increase, President Clinton has decided,
and not the 15 percent boost they could have gotten under a formula intended
to keep federal pay levels in line with those in the private sector.
Clinton said giving government workers the 15 percent increase would be a
risky step away from budgetary discipline. A union official representing
government employees called Clinton's reasoning ``absurd.''
Under the law, most federal civilian employees are to receive a 2.7 percent
base salary increase in January. In addition, they are entitled to a pay
adjustment that aims to close the wage gap between federal and
private-sector
workers.
That would bring the total increase to 15 percent, but the Clinton
administration believes there are flaws in the formula that's used to
compute
this wage gap adjustment.
Clinton, therefore, decided on the 3.7 percent pay raise - the base salary
increase plus a 1 percent adjustment in the differential based on where the
employee lives.
Bobby Harnage, president of the American Federation of Government Employees,
the largest federal workers' union, said limiting the increase to 3.7
percent
guarantees that the federal government will be an employer of last resort
for
the nation's most qualified workers. This, coupled with increases in health
insurance premiums, aggravates the government's problem recruiting and
retaining employees, he said.
``To add insult to injury,'' Harnage said, ``the president conjures up the
bizarre argument that obeying the law, and allowing the 15 percent pay
increase to go forward, would seriously disadvantage private sector
employers
and 'shock' the labor markets.''
``This argument is absurd,'' he said.
The law gives the president discretion to determine the size of the pay
raise. Clinton said a 15 percent increase would disrupt labor markets,
prompt
private firms to raise their wages and possibly trigger inflation.
In a letter to the House and Senate that the White House released Friday,
Clinton said such a large raise also would pose problems for federal
agencies
already under pressure to meet their budgets.
``The budgetary restraint that produced the current budget surpluses must be
maintained if we are to keep the budget sound into the retirement years of
the baby-boom generation,'' Clinton wrote. ``Therefore, I have determined
that the total civilian raise of 3.7 percent that I proposed in my 2001
budget remains appropriate. This raise matches the 3.7 percent basic pay
increase that I proposed for military members.''
Harnage disputes the president's rationale.
``Putting an end to shortchanging federal workers does not hurt the labor
market, or private firms,'' he said. ``It merely restores the dignity of
federal employment and some of the lost purchasing power of federal salaries
since 1973. It simply cannot have anything other than a positive impact on
the economy.''
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