Washington DC – Following President Obama’s recent proposal for a two-year pay freeze for all civilian federal workers, U.S. Energy Secretary Steven Chu today announced a decision to stop salary and bonus pool increases for site and facility management contractor employees, who manage day-to-day operations at certain Department of Energy sites and facilities, including national laboratories.
“As our nation continues to recover from these challenging economic times, households and small businesses across the country are making sacrifices,” said Chu. “In this spirit, we are asking our contractor employees, who are doing important research, operations, and environmental cleanup work, to join the federal workforce in playing a part.”
Chu added: “Our national labs, the country’s crown jewels for leading research and development, will continue to attract and retain the nation’s top scientists, and pursue some of the most important discoveries that will lead us into the 21st century.”
The freeze at the 28 sites and facilities will be effective January 1, 2011 and is applicable to all facility-wide wage and salary increases. For sites that have already approved and implemented increases, the freeze would begin at the beginning of their next salary increase cycle and also last two years.
The action would affect approximately 75,000 workers.
