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None of the contractors will be paid, as I understand it, only permanent federal employees.
by _djo_ 8y ago
None of the contractors will be paid, as I understand it, only permanent federal employees.
- jazzyk 8y agoYes, that comes with the territory (contract cancellations or delayed/non payments are risks associated with running any business).
- _djo_ 8y agoThough of course the underlying risk is that few contractors are going to want to work for the US government again, making it a lot more difficult to fill some positions where skills are scarce. The knock-on effects of this shutdown are going to be around for years.
- zaroth 8y agoThe contracting work is profitable enough to account for the various levels of risk, from federal audits to funding delays to government shutdowns. I predict the knock-on effects of this shutdown will be gone and forgotten within a fiscal quarter. The best evidence of this is looking at the stock market since the partial shutdown began.
- bdcravens 8y agoThe narrative around government contract work is that it is more stable and the checks will never bounce.
- SamBam 8y agoIn general a long-term contract with the government is an almost-guaranteed deal, except in very rare cases like these. It's completely reasonable for contractors to have arranged their finances expecting to be working. (Obviously no job is guaranteed, but most Americans still only have enough cushion for a couple months.)
- jazzyk 8y agoNot sure why I am being downvoted - I run a consulting business myself and I wake up every day knowing that I may be asked not to return to work the following day - for any reason.
- brianwawok 8y agoContractors are not working now though they were sent home. There are 3 buckets of people: 1) Employees forced to work. Promised backpay by a resolution that was passed. 2) Employees not allowed to work. Promised backpay by a resolution. "Free vacation" 3) Contractors not allowed to work. Will not get backpay, money lost is "gone" forever.
- morpheuskafka 8y agoWouldn't 13A guarantee (1) getting paid regardless of resolution?
- rootusrootus 8y agoYes, they cannot be denied pay for work done.
- tylersmith 8y agoI believe the resolution is the implementation of the pay guaranteed by the 13th Amendment. The Amendment just says that they must be paid while the resolution says when and how that will happen.
- dragonwriter 8y agoProbably not; the 13th, per Supreme Court precedent, only applies to physical coercion/threat of force. Work for free or you won't have a job around when we get authority to pay you again isn't physical coercion. OTOH, FLSA would guarantee most federal civilian employees some back pay, though not necessarily their full normal pay.
- dragonwriter 8y ago> None of the contractors will be paid, as I understand it, only permanent federal employees. There's no reason Congress couldn't include back pay under some formula for contractors or employees of contracting firms who lost money due to the shutdown, but historically they have not done so (but, again, this is already the longest-ever shutdown and it may be so by much moreso than it already is, so it wouldn't be entirely inconceivable for Congress to decide extraordinary measures were warranted to address it's impacts.) Conversely, Congress is not obligated to issue full back pay to furloughed federal employees, though it has in past shutdowns; it may also not be required to do so for those forced to work during the shutdown (though, again, it always has); though because FLSA applies to most federal employees those covered employees are definitely entitled to at least federal minimum wage for the time they were ordered to work. While it seems less likely, the extreme length of the shutdown could lead a particularly stingy Congress to decide back pay beyond what is minimally required is unaffordable.