American Federation of Government Employees president J. David Cox approached the new budget deal like a kid who knows he’s getting socks for Christmas: not ecstatically, but happy not to go barefoot.
“We are feeling like we did okay in it,” he said. “At this point, I am not seeing any real harm. There’s nothing coming back attacking our pensions this time, so that’s a good thing.”
House speaker Paul Ryan announced late Dec. 15 that Congress had come to an agreement on a $1.1 trillion federal spending package to fund the government for the rest of fiscal 2016. The deal didn’t address federal compensation directly, meaning President Obama’s proposed 1 percent raise, plus a 0.3 percent locality pay bump, for government employees will go into effect Jan. 1.
Cox, speaking at a reporter roundtable recapping the union’s successes in 2015, said the deal accomplished its main objective, which was preventing a damaging government shutdown. And while the pay raise was less than what AFGE was lobbying for, Cox said any raise was more welcome that what federal employees had experienced recently.
“We’ve gone from three years of a pay freeze to two years at 1 percent,” Cox said. “Thank God we are at least at 1 percent plus the locality pay at 0.3 percent. And they left our pensions alone. They left our health insurance alone. So the future does seem to look a little brighter than what we are seeing.”
Congress will pass another continuing resolution to fund the government until Dec. 22 while it brings the bill to the floor for a vote. Cox added the threat of a shutdown heading into an election year may have helped bring Ryan to the table.
“When the buck finally stops with you, you end up giving and taking a little more than when you are on the sideline telling somebody else what they need to be doing,” he said of Ryan. “I think whoever the speaker in the House of Representatives is right now, he’s going to wrassle with their own party, as long as the Republicans are in control.”
AFGE, which hit more than 300,000 members in 2015, had campaigned for a 3.9 percent pay raise earlier in the year, and Cox said it will continue those compensation and benefits goals in 2016, but right now is happy to possibly leave the year with a small raise for federal employees.
“At least we didn’t get a hit on the pension,” he said. “We’ve been able to beat bad things. We avoided furloughs, which we were dealing with a couple of years ago. So I am optimistically happy.”
