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Back when I was working a full time professional position, I worked for a number of Government Contractors in Washington DC. Over the years, I worked in a number of Federal Government Offices and in my experience there were more contractors working in these buildings than actual Federal Government employees.
No matter how hard I have tried, I was never able to get an official count of the number of contractors vs. actual government employees who work in DC area government facilities.
Now that they plan to close many government offices on October 1st, the media is again ignoring how the shut down impacts contractors. During the last government shut down, when I was working for a government contractor at a NASA facility, I was sent home for almost two weeks and had to take Leave Without Pay during that time. Unlike, the Federal Government workers who sat next to me, us contractors were never paid for the forced time off.
Pretty much everybody knows about this, but it is considered an assumed risk of being a contractor. Everybody knows some agencies heavily rely on contractors. Some contracting employers do better for their employees than others.
You can blame the politicians in Congress and policy advisers in The White House going back to the Reagan and Clinton administration years. Politicians wanted to shrink "Big Government" because it was an easy sell for uninformed voters back home in BumF*ckville Red State America. Republicans led the charge but many neoliberal corporate Democrats joined in the fight to destroy GS positions across several agencies. Federal workers were vilified in political campaigns and in the media for many years.
The politicians found a solution: outsource those full-time GS positions to private contracting companies. This was done to supposedly reign in the employment costs (i.e. benefits and pension contributions) and give greater "flexibility" on personnel decisions to agency directors. When times are busy--hire contract labor to fill positions. When projects slow down--pare back contracting positions.
Politicians also warmed to the idea that private contractors can hire productive workers who can perform to maximum efficiency standards. It was assumed that contract workers were faster and smarter than the "lazy" government paper pusher. In other words, save $$$$ for the poor US citizen taxpayer. But in fact, most contract workers were paid MORE than a federal GS employee for the same kind of position. The drawback was that the contractors would not enjoy the generous health care/vacation/retirement benefits packages and labor contract protections enjoyed by federal workers. Many federal government workers also belong to a labor union, which offers additional protections in case of abuse or disputes with managements. Contractors don't have union membership.
But someone is making a killing from the outsourcing of federal government jobs. That would be the CEO and senior officers of private contracting firms dotting the Capital Beltway. Management receives a bigger cut of the government funding than the lowly contractor worker bee. So when the government shuts down for a week or a month...the CEO of the contracting firm does not have to sweat paying the bills in his own household. He's comfortable in his $1 million home in Great Falls, VA.
If there is a federal government shutdown, you can shake your fist at Reagan, Clinton, the idiots in Congress and your CEO.
Now that they plan to close many government offices on October 1st, the media is again ignoring how the shut down impacts contractors. During the last government shut down, when I was working for a government contractor at a NASA facility, I was sent home for almost two weeks and had to take Leave Without Pay during that time. Unlike, the Federal Government workers who sat next to me, us contractors were never paid for the forced time off.
Any thoughts or analysis?
Oh, I don't know that the media is ignoring it. They will include the words "and contractors" when speaking of people affected by the shut down if and when it happens.
The bigger issue is why the contractors don't pay their employees. I worked for a contractor in the 90s, and they tried not to pay us for snow days, saying it wasn't their fault the contracting agency closed the office. My supervisor there tried to give me a song and dance like, "If you were a waitress, you wouldn't get paid when the restaurant closed." You know, because I spent four years in college for my job to be scaled to that of a waitress. Not that there is anything wrong with being a waitress, but come on. You're comparing degreed, highly skilled professionals to waitresses in terms of employment?
When my on-site supervisor got wind of that, she called the company up and said, "You pay your employees as part of the cost of doing business or I will give the contract to someone else and they will go with it."
And she could do that. She had already moved two of us over from a temp agency to the contract.
As mentioned above, it's the risk one takes when becoming a contractor to the United States Government.
It shouldn't be, though. I didn't work for a defense agency, but my employer in the post above yours was a defense contractor. They make money hand over fist. There is no reason they should have tried to cheap out on paying two tech writers and a designer a week's pay other than pure, unadulterated greed and callousness.
There really should be labor laws to protect contractors from this kind of thing.
Heck, there should be laws against fools in Congress throwing tantrums and shutting down the government when they don't get their way, regardless of party, but I digress...
It shouldn't be, though. I didn't work for a defense agency, but my employer in the post above yours was a defense contractor. They make money hand over fist. There is no reason they should have tried to cheap out on paying two tech writers and a designer a week's pay other than pure, unadulterated greed and callousness.
There really should be labor laws to protect contractors from this kind of thing.
Heck, there should be laws against fools in Congress throwing tantrums and shutting down the government when they don't get their way, regardless of party, but I digress...
You could have received unemployment benefits for those two weeks...
During the last government shut down, when I was working for a government contractor at a NASA facility, I was sent home for almost two weeks and had to take Leave Without Pay during that time. Unlike, the Federal Government workers who sat next to me, us contractors were never paid for the forced time off.
Companies certainly may compensate government contract-assigned employees affected by a shutdown, they just cannot use contract funds. The fact that your employer placed you on LWOP isn't the government's problem.
During the last government shut down, when I was working for a government contractor at a NASA facility, I was sent home for almost two weeks and had to take Leave Without Pay during that time. Unlike, the Federal Government workers who sat next to me, us contractors were never paid for the forced time off.
Any thoughts or analysis?
It's not the governments issue to figure out. It's up to the contracting company. Usually the bigger ones can find some wiggle room while the smaller companies can't for obvious reasons. During the Snowpocalypse 2010 when the government was out for a week, we all still got paid without having to use vacation leave. But that was general dynamics
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