The NCUA's 950 unionized NCUA employees will not get a pay raise next year but will get a more generous retirement package, the agency said Tuesday.

Employees will be able to participate in a 401(k) program that the agency will fund at 3% of their salaries. Thus would be in addition to the existing Thrift Savings Plan, agency spokesman David Small said.

The contract with the National Treasury Employees Union was ratified earlier this month and scheduled to be signed on Nov. 1.

The pay freeze coincides with the one that President Obama ordered for all federal employees not covered by the union contract, which runs through 2012. Under the new NTEU agreement, the agency's pay will increase by the same percentage as the overall pay of government employees.

That means if the pay freeze is extended beyond 2012 then NCUA employees won't get a higher salary. The approximately 200 NCUA employees not covered by the union contract had their pay frozen this year like most federal employees. However, those covered by the union contract received a 6.1% increase because that had been negotiated before Obama ordered the pay freeze last November, Small said.