Furloughed Feds Will Get Paid for Oct. 1 -- Eventually Government Executive The government shut down on Tuesday, furloughing nearly 1 million federal civilian employees nationwide. Most of them want to know when they can go back to work, and if Congress will give them back pay for those missed days. Both issues are still up in the air, at least at the moment. But federal employees will get paid for a few hours on Tuesday, when furloughed workers reported for work to set up out-of-office messages, return government phones and computers, and close up shop for an indeterminate amount of time. Employees will be paid for the time they spent in the office on Tuesday, preparing for an “orderly shutdown,” regardless of their furlough status. Agencies told employees to report to work on Oct. 1, Day 1 of the shutdown, to get furlough notices if necessary, and tie up loose ends for up to four hours. “The government may not require an employee to work without compensation,” said John Palguta, vice president for policy at the nonprofit Partnership for Public Service, by email. Of course, when workers receive their pay is another matter because that won’t happen until the government reopens. Military service members, and the Defense Department civilians who support them, will be paid on time under a law Congress passed and President Obama signed on Monday. Also, furloughed workers shouldn’t give up hope on retroactive pay. Washington-area lawmakers in both the House and Senate have introduced bills that would grant back pay once government reopens, and those bills continue to gather co-sponsors. If there’s one thing we’ve learned about lawmakers in this Congress, it’s that they’re unpredictable. And, after all, 85 percent of federal workers live outside of Washington -- and they vote, too govexec/pay-benefits/2013/10/house-lawmakers-push-back-pay-furloughed-feds/71128/
Posted on: Thu, 03 Oct 2013 01:03:23 +0000
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