By Andrea Shalal and Andy Sullivan
WASHINGTON (Reuters) -U.S. President Donald Trump’s administration is proposing that federal employees idled by the government shutdown would not automatically get retroactive pay when the standoff ends, according to an internal document described to Reuters on Tuesday.
If adopted as official policy, that could threaten back pay for up to 700,000 furloughed scientists, administrators and other civil servants who have been ordered not to work since the shutdown began on October 1.
That would counteract guidance by Trump’s own personnel office, which says a 2019 law signed by Trump guarantees back pay to all employees as soon as possible after a shutdown ends, whether they were furloughed or required to stay on the job. It also threatens to upend past practice in Washington over the 15 government shutdowns since 1981, when Congress has voted to restore back pay to all employees.
In a draft memo dated Friday, the top lawyer at the White House Office of Management and Budget argued that the 2019 law does not make those payments automatic, but still requires them to be approved by Congress, according to a White House official who spoke on condition of anonymity.
Speaking to reporters at the White House on the seventh day of the shutdown, Trump suggested that not all of those idled should be paid when normal operations resume. “It depends on who we’re talking about,” he said without explaining further.
“We’re going to take care of our people,” he added. “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.”
THREATS TO FIRE WORKERS
Trump repeatedly threatened to use the shutdown to lay off thousands of federal workers, on top of the 300,000 he will have pushed out by the end of the year, and his administration has frozen more than $30 billion in transit and green-energy funding for Democratic-leaning cities and states.
During the shutdown, federal agencies are requiring military troops, border guards, air traffic controllers and other “essential” workers to report for duty, even though they are not getting paid. They could face financial strain as soon as next week, when many would miss their first paycheck.
The shutdown began October 1 when Congress allowed government funding to expire, and lawmakers have repeatedly rejected dueling Republican and Democratic plans to restore funding. Republicans are backing a plan to extend funding through November 21, which would give lawmakers more time to finish work on the complex spending laws that fund everything from the military to environmental protection. Democrats say any funding bill must also bolster healthcare subsidies that are due to expire at the end of the year.
OMB’s new interpretation of the 2019 law would require lawmakers to affirmatively sign off on back pay for furloughed workers – a potential stumbling block when deep partisan divisions have made it difficult to pass even the most essential legislation.
Several of Trump’s fellow Republicans said they had little appetite for that approach. “I do think we’ve always given back pay, and we likely will this time,” said Republican Senator John Kennedy of Louisiana.
(Reporting by Andrea Shalal and Andy Sullivan; additional reporting by David Morgan and Brendan O’Brien; editing by Scott Malone and Cynthia Osterman)
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