SEC Workers Protest Pay Raise Proposals

About 200 employees at the Securities and Exchange Commission rallied Thursday to protest management proposals for salary raises.

A union representing 2,000 of the 3,000 SEC employees has sought a federal mediator after talks with SEC’s management over how to implement $25 million in funding for “pay parity”--putting SEC staffers on par with those at other regulatory agencies--stalled more than a week ago.

The National Treasury Employees Union is seeking about 60% of the money, which was approved by Congress last year and signed into law by President Bush in January.

Union officials estimate that SEC management wants to provide only about 40% for union-represented salaries for the remainder of the fiscal year but said they could not be certain because management has failed to disclose how the funding is to be used.

At issue is a new pay scale implemented by management this month that the union says favors managers and supervisors. The union also said it opposes a proposal for an initial 6% increase because it would not benefit workers over the next few years.

“It’s regrettable it has come to this,” Solomon Cromwell, an accountant in the SEC’s division of corporation finance, said at the afternoon rally.

The rally at the SEC’s main office in Washington was often punctuated with chants by employees carrying signs expressing displeasure with the stalled negotiations and deriding SEC Chairman Harvey Pitt.

“Your version of pay parity sounds like the board of Enron--Unfair,” read one sign. “Pitt’s pay scale is the Pitts!” and “No more Enrons,” read others.

Pitt declined to comment on the negotiations.