Federal Wage System - Labor Unions

Labor Unions

Labor organizations play an important role in the wage determination process by providing representatives at all levels of the wage determination process. The employee unions having the greatest number of wage employees under exclusive recognition designate two of the five members of a lead agency's national level wage committee. Locally, the union with the most employees under exclusive recognition in a wage area designates one of the three members of each Local Wage Survey Committee. In addition, labor organizations nominate half of the Federal employees who collect wage data from private enterprise employers. A partnership team of one labor data collector and one management data collector visits each surveyed employer.

Under the FWS, each employer bases pay on what private industry is paying for comparable levels of work in a given local wage area. Employees are paid the full prevailing rate at step 2 of each grade level. Step 1, the lowest step in the FWS, is 4 percent below the prevailing rate of pay. Steps 3, 4, & 5, are four, eight, & 12 percent above the prevailing rate of pay, respectively.