Need opinions on this situation

[Samurai_Writer]

Hi all,

My sister has a work situation that I'd like to get some advice on, since she asked me for advice.

My sister has been working for the federal government for 15 years. In all that time, she has never received a pay grade raise. She is in the only woman in her department. Now, for the past 6 years, she has been working parttime (20 hours a week) since she adopted her two girls. But, she is only paid for the hours she works, which is fair.

The 'committee' has said that since she works only part-time, that they don't want to give her a pay grade raise to the next level. She's really discouraged, as they had approved a temporary pay grade raise, but they are refusing to make it permanent.

Oh, and she is doing the work of people who are 2-3 pay grade levels above her. She has taken over projects from guys who have left, who were making more than she is.

Has anyone worked with the federal government and is knowledge about the pay grade level system? Personally, I think they are being discriminatory based on her gender. I can't believe they haven't given her a raise in 15 years!!!

[noamnety]

1. I can't say whether it's discriminatory or not.

Certainly there were people I worked with in the GS system who stayed at the same pay grade nearly their entire career. Now as it happens, they were all women. Go figure. A lot of the generic admin folks seemed to be stuck at GS7's, they needed an actual career track to advance beyond that.

My constructive advice would be to document the job duties that she's doing, make sure it's written in her job description, and then ask to compare it to the entire job descriptions of the people she took the projects from.

She'll either find out that:

a) their jobs entailed a range of duties, and hers a separate range, with some crossover, but the bulk of their responsibilities was greater, or

b) the jobs essentially are the same.

My understanding of the system (I spent a decade in it, the husband's been in for about 20 years now) is that part time status shouldn't affect pay grade. Education and job duties normally define that.

Is job sharing an option? How much longer does she expect to need part time hours?

[femrap]

2. Unbelievable.

Isn't there a system set up within the Fed for her to protest her lack of a pay raise over all of those years? I had a friend a long time ago who worked in the Fed's Personnel Office.

Make sure everything is documented...all of the projects she worked on and the dates and who worked on these in the past.

[noamnety]

3. She should be getting step increases

but the pay grade for each job itself is defined by the job duties. Each job has a particular rating - so you don't really get promoted as an individual within your own job from a GS-7 to a GS-9. The job itself has to be reclassified at the higher level, and then each subsequent person who gets that job is at the higher level, also.

It's normal for a particular job (admin, for instance) to remain classified as a GS-5 position for decades. They can't really just up each job classification for individuals indefinitely, otherwise everyone's job would be a GS-15.

(and we can't have everyone being equal ... I forget why exactly)

It might be interesting to look at how many men have come in at the same level she entered at, whether or not their jobs were reclassified to give them promotions, whether their qualifications were substantially different than hers, and so on. If she can show a clear distinction between how men and women advance through the ranks, or how others in general have advanced, and can show that the only difference could be from her child care responsibilities, she'd be in a good position to go to HR.

It would help to know if she's in a specialized field with special training (like contract management or engineering, for example), or a more generic support position.

[Samurai_Writer]

4. She's a scientist

I don't want to get too specific, but let's just say she is at a pretty high grade level. However, others have been promoted to higher grade levels that have just as much education and experience as she does. They were all men, of course.

You've given me a lot of good information, and I'll pass it on to her. She expects to remain part-time while her kids are in school (her oldest is in 1st grade right now). She might work more hours after the youngest is in school full-time, though. She does still go on field assignments several times a year.