Blue-collar Federal Wage System employees working in the same locations as their white-collar federal General Schedule counterparts would be treated as being in the same locality pay areas under legislation introduced by Rep. Matt Cartwright (D-Pa.) June 20.

To accomplish this goal, the Locality Pay Equity Act (H.R. 2450) would require the Office of Personnel Management to designate no more than one local wage area within a metropolitan pay locality.

"This legislation simply directs the Office of Personnel Management to fix this archaic system and level the playing field" between FWS employees, who are paid on an hourly basis, and salaried GS employees, Cartwright said June 21.

For example, Cartwright said, hourly employees at Tobyhanna Army Depot, which is in his congressional district, are part of the "Rest of United States" (RUS) federal pay area for nonurban areas, where employees generally are offered lower locality pay increases than those offered to federal employees considered to be within a metropolitan locality pay area.

However, GS employees at Tobyhanna have been placed in the New York City metropolitan locality pay area, which has resulted in their receiving larger pay increases than their FWS counterparts, Cartwright said.

In October 2010, he said, OPM's Federal Prevailing Rate Advisory Committee recommended that the government end the practice of treating wage and salary federal employees at the same location differently with regard to drawing local labor market boundaries.

But the government has not moved to adopt the recommendation, which Cartwright said may be because of the pay freeze that has been in effect for federal employees since the beginning of 2011. The freeze applies to the annual across-the-board increase generally provided to most federal executive branch employees each January, but not to step increases, merit increases and bonuses, or promotions.

Even before the pay freeze was established, President Obama in late November 2009 asked Congress to approve a 2 percent base pay increase for federal GS employees with no locality component, meaning that employees in different areas of the country would all get the same 2 percent increase. However, the FY 2010 omnibus appropriations measure signed by the president the following month included a 1.5 percent across-the-board pay increase, along with locality pay increases averaging 0.5 percent.

"Treating hourly wage employees as if they are in one local labor market for purposes of base pay and annual pay adjustments and salaried workers as if they are in a different local labor market for purposes of setting pay is inconsistent and inequitable. It violates basic standards of fairness," Cartwright said.

He added that the Locality Pay Equity Act would not affect the pay of salaried white-collar federal employees in any way. The bill specifies that implementing regulations would be written by OPM to ensure that the law does not have the effect of reducing hourly blue-collar pay.

In other public sector news:

• Same-sex spouses of federal employees and annuitants are eligible for coverage under the federal government's benefits programs following the U.S. Supreme Court's June 26 ruling that Section 3 of the Defense of Marriage Act is unconstitutional, Elaine Kaplan, acting director of the Office of Personnel Management, said in a memorandum specifying procedures for applying for coverage and promising additional guidance in the future.

• In implementing the 11 days of fiscal year 2013 civilian employee furloughs scheduled to begin July 8, Defense Department agencies must ensure they are not asking employees to work longer hours to compensate for the lost time or using military personnel or contractors to do the work of furloughed employees, Assistant Secretary of Defense for Readiness and Force Management Vollrath wrote in a memorandum to DOD agency heads.

• Missouri Gov. Nixon (D) in a June 25 letter vetoed legislation that would have required public employee unions in the state to obtain consent from employees each year before deducting dues and fees and before using fees for political advocacy.

• The U.S. attorney's office and the city of New York agreed to a proposed settlement of a police detective's class action complaint alleging that the city unlawfully reduced officers' pensions based on post-Sept. 11 military service.