A newly revealed memo from the Office of Management and Budget claims that federal workers forced into furlough during the ongoing shutdown may not receive back pay once the ordeal ends.
In open defiance of law, the administration argues that the 2019 Government Employee Fair Treatment Act does not automatically guarantee wages to workers sent home or ordered to labor without compensation. The government that once promised fairness has now declared that those who serve it may be discarded.
Mark Paoletta, the administration’s top lawyer at the budget office, wrote that Congress must pass new legislation to authorize those payments. His reasoning is what one former Republican official called “clearly against its intent.”
President Donald Trump offered no compassion.
“It depends on who we’re talking about,” he said when asked if furloughed workers would receive back pay. “There are some people that really don’t deserve to be taken care of, and we’ll take care of them in a different way.”
Across the country, millions now live the consequences of those words. Families of federal workers are bracing for change – the most recent estimate revealed that more than 49,000 District residents, or 13%, are federally employed.
CNN reported that many workers will receive smaller paychecks this week — the last they may see until the shutdown ends.
The administration’s defiance also contradicts its own Office of Personnel Management, which stated that “employees who were furloughed as the result of the lapse will receive retroactive pay for those furlough periods” once the shutdown ends.
Sen. Patty Murray (D-Wash.) called the memo a “baseless attempt to try and scare and intimidate workers by an administration run by crooks and cowards.”
Everett Kelley, president of the American Federation of Government Employees, said the livelihoods of federal employees “are not bargaining chips in a political game.”