Federal Employee Retroactive Pay Fairness Act

Floor Speech

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Mr. HOYER. Mr. Speaker, I want to thank the gentleman for yielding.

I want to thank my colleague, Frank Wolf. There's no harder advocate or effective advocate for Federal employees than Frank Wolf. He and I have worked together for over 32 years on behalf of the interest of those people who work for the American people every day to make them safer, healthier, more informed. I want to thank the majority leader; I want to thank the ranking member; I want to thank the gentleman who offers his support of this bill; and I want to thank my colleagues.

Mr. Speaker, we're 5 days into a government shutdown caused by--well, I'm not sure what it's caused by. As a result, approximately 800,000 middle class workers who serve the American people are furloughed without pay. All of us talk about working Americans, how we want to make sure they have the jobs that they need to support themselves and their family.

Our Federal employees have already been asked to accept COLA freezes for the past 4 years, and they've endured changes to retirement benefits as well as the furloughs imposed by the irrational policy of sequester. I'm glad to see the chairman of the Appropriations Committee on the floor. There's been no more stronger voice on the irrationality of the sequester than my friend from Kentucky.

Only my colleagues on the other side of the aisle can say with certainty, if they can, when our Federal Government will be able to go back to work, but the American people are already noticing their absence, whether safeguarding our national parks, performing groundbreaking medical research at NIH, overseeing disaster relief efforts after a storm or wildfire, making sure nutrition assistance gets to the children and seniors who need it, or enforcing the laws that keep our community safe. Federal employees make a critical contribution to the country and communities and the American people they serve.

We saw their selfless nature and devotion of country on display this Thursday when, as the gentleman from Virginia (Mr. Wolf) said, U.S. Capitol Police personnel, Federal employees who are deemed essential for security and are currently on the job without the promise of pay, protected all of us who work in the Capitol complex during a security incident.

I am proud to represent 62,000 hardworking Federal employees in my district, yet most of the Federal employees are not in the Washington metropolitan area. Eighty percent of them are dispersed throughout this country, serving in every area, every community of our great land, many of whom serve in civilian defense roles at critical military institutions like Pax River, Indian Head, and Webster Field in my district. Each one of you could name a facility in your district.

One of them wrote to me to express his frustration of those who are preventing the government from reopening. He writes:

I'm quite tired of being punished when my only crime is supporting our great Nation with my labor.

The SPEAKER pro tempore. The time of the gentleman has expired.

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Mr. HOYER. I want to thank my Republican colleagues for recognizing that pain and unfairness and bringing this bill to the floor. I hope all of us will support this bill.

Another constituent of mine who works at Pax River said this: ``Please continue to work toward a solution that ends the furloughs for all Federal employees affected by the shutdown, not just a select few,'' as we're doing.

Mr. Speaker, we must reopen our government, and we could do so today, this hour. But until the majority allows a vote on the bill to reopen the government, let us at least provide the dedicated, patriotic Federal employees who want nothing more than to go back to work with the peace of mind that they will still be paid for their service.

I want to thank the gentleman from Virginia (Mr. Moran). Mr. Moran, like the gentleman from Virginia (Mr. Wolf), has been an extraordinary leader on behalf of Federal employees, as well as Congressmen Gerald Connolly and Steve Lynch who sit here and others on the Republican side who have been aligned on that effort as well. Surely, surely we, the board of directors of the greatest enterprise on Earth, can take care of our employees and give them the confidence that they deserve.

I thank the gentleman from Maryland for the additional time.

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