The Office of Personnel Management has issued a simple new proposal: the higher your altitude, the higher your pay.
Under the OPM proposal, federal employees who work above 12,795 feet will be eligible for an 8 percent hazardous duty pay increase. But there's a catch--employees have to commute to the high-altitude work site from a "substantially lower" altitude to receive the special rate. Rapid changes in altitude can cause nausea, increase heart rates and impair judgment.
The Smithsonian Institution asked OPM to create the special pay rate. Workers at the Smithsonian Astrophysical Observatory near the 13,800-foot summit of Mauna Kea, in Hawaii, must trek up and down the extinct volcano every day, putting them at risk of altitude sickness.
While the proposed pay differential would compensate employees who face lower atmospheric pressure and oxygen levels every day, OPM warns any agency that takes advantage of the hazard pay to "take whatever measures are feasible to minimize the harmful effects of work at a high altitude."
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