White House Supports Back-Pay for Furloughed Federal Employees; Congress Non-Committal
Thursday, April 7, 2011(National Federation of Federal Employees)
At a
White House press briefing Thursday, OMB Deputy
Director for Management Jeffrey Zients said
that the Obama administration supports
providing retroactive pay for furloughed
federal employees, should a shutdown
occur.
Though
it is important that the Administration is
taking a stand, there are no guarantees that
furloughed employees will be compensated. By
law, only Congress can make the determination
as to whether or not these workers are made
whole. Following the 1995 and 1996 shutdowns,
Congress did just that, paying employees
retroactively once the government returned to
work.
According to Rep. James Moran (D-VA),
however, that may not necessarily be the case
this time around. On a conference call with
reporters yesterday, Moran said that his
conversations with conservative members of the
House led him to believe that back-pay for
furloughed workers would be “highly unlikely.”
“This is
an insult to every federal employee who shows
up to work and serves their country each day,”
said NFFE National President William R. Dougan.
“These hardworking women and men have bills to
pay and families to feed. They want to work.
Federal workers do not deserve to be punished
because Congress refuses to do its
job.”