Everyone is talking about “pay compression.” Some people are happy, many are not, and most are mystified. What the hell just happened?
FWC has been pushing the issue of “pay inequity” since the beginning of the COVID recovery. We have been the leading voice advocating for a simple concept: too many workers are well below the rate they should be paid, both in public sector and comparable jobs in private industry. As a result, the county has hemorrhaged jobs in all agencies, especially in public works, human services, and almost every agency. As we told the Board of Supervisors in public testimony, Fairfax County was no longer a competitive employer.
The history of how we got here started well before COVID. It has its roots in the decision to change a system that worked well (the old step pay system) to the infamous “pay for performance” system just before 2000. Once this predictably crashed, the Board went to a scale system between starting and “top” pay in 2009. But after that numerous pay freezes and routine failure to fund the Market rate Adjustment (MRA) for over a dozen years, many workers found themselves well below the midpoint of their pay scale, while new workers with little experience were hired for far more money.
This is why FWC has been pushing for Pay Equity (later renamed Pay Compression). Our proposal was simple: every worker that was here for at least 8-10 years be placed at the midpoint of their scale or above. This was a simple solution that was cost effective and would have promoted a culture of equality and fair play. Most area jurisdictions were having similar problems and adopted across the board solutions.
Naturally, Fairfax did something very different.
Fairfax developed a complicated process that emphasized “experience” including pre- Fairfax experience. This included reviewing resumes and NEOGOV. It must have occurred to someone that all our workers, such as those driving or in other trade jobs, weren’t polishing their resumes instead of working. Somehow this data was converted to a pay increase to 60% of scale for a few, and zero for others. Then there were the in-betweens. We’ve heard of people getting raises of as little as 6 cents an hour. Agencies were responsible for developing the data; as you can guess, everyone did it differently. DPWES and DVS got theirs done with mixed results, but at least they did it. Some Agencies have turned in nothing. In fairness, many staff in DHR and other agencies worked long hours on this, using the guidelines they had, while others did little or nothing. The first raises for the compliant agencies were delivered on January 27th . Now it’s been announced that others will have to wait until May. (Naturally, the other union has claimed credit for this. This is utter nonsense. I’ve never seen them in a meeting about this.)
The result has been predictably chaotic. Many employees stayed well below the midpoint of the scale, despite being here for 20 years or more. Some newer employees got sizable raises. Many got a small raise that was almost meaningless. None of them really understood how or why. And in the workplace, the mistrust of the County that is always there got even worse. One supervisor told me the application of pay compression made things even worse as employees were fighting and arguing among themselves.
Naturally, everyone wants to blame somebody or something. But it’s on the Agencies. County Executive Hill signed every proposal he was given. He depended on the Agencies to submit accurate and relevant data. He can’t be expected to review every single employee’s salary. Agencies where FWC is strong had the most positive results.
At FWC we’re committed to seeing Fairfax workers get a fair wage. And we’ve been fighting for it. If you’re willing to stand up join us. We’ll make sure the system will answer. Don’t be fooled by the other union claiming that if you sign their petition, it will fix it. They re just trying to get signatures for an election. Collective bargaining won’t help this year; it won’t take effect until July 2024.
Call us on 571-991-5386 or email us at fairfaxworkerscoalition@outlook.com. Let’s keep fighting for fair pay. We need a list of everyone who has a concern about their pay. Tell us if your agency has done anything, what your percentage is on your pay scale (it’s on your pay advice in FOCUS), and years with the county and experience. We’re asking that the agencies provide a review for all those who got left behind.
It’s simple justice. The Board owns this, and together, we can have them fix it.