Should furloughed government workers be paid retroactively after a shutdown?
Please register to participate in our discussions with 2 million other members - it's free and quick! Some forums can only be seen by registered members. After you create your account, you'll be able to customize options and access all our 15,000 new posts/day with fewer ads.
Absolutely not. I have three family members who are affected by it. One is working with no pay (yes, I know they will get back pay) and two more are sitting at home anxiously waiting for word they can go back to work.
It's not a big deal for people who aren't affected, but for those 800,000 and their immediate family, it's a very big deal.
When I was a union member and we voted to go on strike, we knew we were not going to be paid.
These government employees, did not ask to be used as pawns, while the government decides the budget.
There needs to be a constitutional amendment that assures that government employees not be used as pawns.
Those 800,000 people are voters, too. They need to be paid for the time that they have sacrificed for the sake of belligerent leaders that can't decide what to do. The president and congress need to quit using government workers, for their stubborn, non compromising selves.
Compromise and get these people back to work and pay them for time lost. If trump refuses to sign a decent bill......................well............fire him.
Be careful, you are accepting the government's definition of what is and what isn't essential. The people who collect your taxes at the IRS are essential. The people who help you make sense of the forms and answer questions or the ones who process refund checks, are non-essential.
I think the whole "essential" vs "non-essential" designation is confusing some people. They need a better designation. It's not that the non-essential once aren't needed (which the name implies) it's that they won't be missed temporarily/things won't come grinding to a halt... right away.
Another way to look at it is to look at your own workplace. I am sure there are people there, if they were out, you could cover for or someone could cover for for a short period of time. But if that person left, you've company would need to hire someone to replace. I used to work in a machines shop. The receptionist at a machine shop isn't "essential" to getting parts made for clients and shipping out orders. Ours was once out sick for two weeks with the flu one year. We didn't need her to function. But eventually, someone had to answer the phones and take new orders, answer questions, etc. You can't have the machinists doing it because they need to do their own work (besides, you can't hear the phone ring anyway). The boss brought in his wife to cover for a bit. The receptionist also was the one who ordered materials for the shop too. We had a stockpile we worked with in that time, but we couldn't last forever without her. She was the one with the contacts and had the relationships with the sales people to get us the best deals.
Those furloughed are like that receptionist. You don't need them right now while the government limps along, but long term, you need someone to do those jobs because they won't do themselves.
The whole "essential" versus "non-essential" debate is just crazy. It was changed two decades ago a similarly silly "excepted" versus "non-excepted". Sadly though (as we have seen with these threads about the shutdown), many use essential and non-essential. And further more, people continue to think non-essential employees work jobs that are simply not needed, which is absured. The big thing is that during a shutdown where little is funded, the departments need to run, but are ran on skeleton crews. You barely even have muscles. It was a lot like the crews from the recession era.
The whole "essential" versus "non-essential" debate is just crazy. It was changed two decades ago a similarly silly "excepted" versus "non-excepted". Sadly though (as we have seen with these threads about the shutdown), many use essential and non-essential. And further more, people continue to think non-essential employees work jobs that are simply not needed, which is absured. The big thing is that during a shutdown where little is funded, the departments need to run, but are ran on skeleton crews. You barely even have muscles. It was a lot like the crews from the recession era.
I'm increasingly of the opinion that those who didn't work SHOULDN'T be paid. If you didn't work you shouldn't get paid, period. I remember living in communities in the past where steel mills and coal mines were mothballed or closed temporarily because of federal and state government policies from the left. The arrogance of the government is very telling, even scripting letters to landords and creditors.
Imagine if a steelworker wrote such a letter because Democrats sent his job to Mexico for political globalist reasons, or if a coal miner wrote such a letter because the Obama EPA destroyed his job.....
Especially when they revel in their own stupidity when it fits their political leanings.
Please register to post and access all features of our very popular forum. It is free and quick. Over $68,000 in prizes has already been given out to active posters on our forum. Additional giveaways are planned.
Detailed information about all U.S. cities, counties, and zip codes on our site: City-data.com.
Please register to participate in our discussions with 2 million other members - it's free and quick! Some forums can only be seen by registered members. After you create your account, you'll be able to customize options and access all our 15,000 new posts/day with fewer ads.
