CFPB, Employees Reach Tentative Deal to Raise Worker Pay Bands

The Consumer Financial Protection Bureau and the union representing most of its workers reached a tentative agreement on compensation.

The CFPB and the National Treasury Employees Union agreed on April 19 to a deal that raises pay bands for current employees 2% in 2025 and 2026. Pay bands are the salary ranges for employees of different ranks.

“The 2% in ’25 and ’26 is not anywhere close to what we had proposed originally and think is the best way of doing it,” Solange Hilfinger-Pardo, chair of the NTEU Chapter 335 pay bargaining committee, said in an interview Wednesday. “But we definitely consider that a win for us because it’s something we think is really important.”

The new three-year compensation agreement, if CFPB employees ratify it, lasts through the end of 2026. Union leaders anticipate a majority of employees will support the agreement.

The agreement follows what had been protracted, and at times contentious, negotiations.

Read More: Pay Raise Fight at CFPB Boils Over, Imperiling Wage Talks

Union officials have complained that the CFPB didn’t act in good faith during the negotiating process. NTEU President Doreen Greenwald in March sent a scathing letter alleging that CFPB Director Rohit Chopra ignored several attempted communications.

Pay equity for new employees, another key compensation issue, proved to be insurmountable. The two sides will revisit the issue, which could effect hundreds of new employees, next year.

The CFPB declined to comment.

CFPB workers were concerned that, because of the increase in base pay they all received as part of the salary reset the agency completed in 2023, some long-tenured employees wouldn’t be able to get raises. The CFPB told workers that raising bands may pose a problem for the agency’s long-term stability.

The CFPB has also started some new employees at 2023 pay levels, which the union said created a two-tiered compensation system.

“It was so hard-fought what we did get but we still had to make major concessions,” Catherine Farman, president of NTEU Chapter 335, said. “We expect there to be a minority, but a larger one than we’ve ever had, of dissenting votes against ratification just because there were some people left out this time of the agreement.”