Federal Diary: Federal Diary: Blue-collar workers still seeking pay raise

They are 230,000 strong, yet often seem invisible.

They back the military with critical skills, yet they are frequently forgotten.

Joe Davidson

Joe Davidson writes the Federal Diary, a column about the federal workplace that celebrated its 80th birthday in November 2012. Davidson previously was an assistant city editor at The Washington Post and a Washington and foreign correspondent with The Wall Street Journal, where he covered federal agencies and political campaigns.

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Their collars are blue, which increasingly matches their mood.

The wage-grade employees in the federal government dont get much notice, but this generally quiet group now is making noise.

Employees covered by the Federal Wage System continue to labor in the cold of the three-year freeze on basic pay rates that ended with the calendar year for most workers. The 1percent pay raise provided to their colleagues did not include wage-grade staffers.

These are the governments blue-collar workers.

Wage-grade workers are not covered by the law that allows the president to set a pay raise amount for the much larger General Schedule employees. Generally, Wage System pay increases have been included in appropriations legislation, and that might happen this year, too.

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Federal Diary: Federal Diary: Blue-collar workers still seeking pay raise