Hundreds of thousands of furloughed federal workers may not automatically receive back pay once the government reopens, the White House indicated in a draft memo, prompting broad fears that the Trump administration might try to circumvent federal law to maximize the pain of the shutdown.
The memo, which was shared by a White House official, could presage a radical break from a policy adopted during President Trump’s first term. It appeared to contradict some of the administration’s own guidance, which by Tuesday still indicated that furloughed employees would receive retroactive pay shortly after Congress strikes a funding deal.
Following the longest shutdown in history — a five-week closure that began under Mr. Trump at the end of 2018 — Congress adopted a law that guaranteed back pay for the millions of federal workers who often bear the financial brunt of funding lapses. That measure, known as the Government Employee Fair Treatment Act, applied not only to that closure but future fiscal lapses, ending a major source of uncertainty for federal workers caught in the political fray.
Mr. Tump signed that measure into law in 2019. But his administration six years later now appears to have interpreted its guarantees much differently.
In the draft memo, the White House budget office said that only the workers who are deemed as essential — military service members, air traffic controllers and others still working while the government is closed — are entitled to pay once the stalemate ends. For those who are furloughed, the White House memo lays out the case that Congress still must explicitly approve funding for the payments.
Union officials and Democratic lawmakers quickly blasted Mr. Trump for what they described as only the latest attempt to use federal workers as bargaining chips during the shutdown. The president separately has threatened to fire government workers while federal offices remain closed, prompting labor groups to sue in a bid to block the mass layoffs.
Everett Kelley, the national president of the American Federation of Government Employees, said the White House had offered a “frivolous argument” about back pay and an “obvious misinterpretation of the law,” noting that the government itself appeared to take a much different position in public guidance.
In a question-and-answer document posted online by the Office of Personnel Management, the agency specifically says that “employees who were furloughed as the result of the lapse will receive retroactive pay for those furlough periods.”
Senator Patty Murray of Washington, the top Democrat on the chamber’s Appropriations Committee, said on social media that the White House memo marked only “another baseless attempt to try and scare” federal workers.
“The letter of the law is as plain as can be — federal workers, including furloughed workers, are entitled to their back pay following a shutdown,” she said.
Axios earlier reported on the memo.
Tony Romm is a reporter covering economic policy and the Trump administration for The Times, based in Washington.
The post White House Signals It May Try to Deny Back Pay to Furloughed Federal Workers appeared first on New York Times.
