Federal Employee Retroactive Pay Fairness Act (H.R. 3223)

Statement

Congresswoman Sheila Jackson Lee released the following statement regarding the current government shutdown:

"Today, the House considered the Federal Employee Retroactive Pay Fairness Act (H.R. 3223), which will ensure all federal employees receive back pay once the federal government re-opens, regardless of their furlough status. Roughly 800,000 federal workers across the country, who work hard to make our nation a safer and better place to live, where on the verge losing their pay because they have been furloughed as a result of the government shutdown.

"Federal workers should not be held responsible for Congress' inability to pass a budget. Government employees have already shouldered a great deal of the burden of past deficit reduction measures and have already lived through the pain of sequestration. Today's bipartisan vote shields family pocketbooks and reaffirms our commitment to our federal workforce -- providing these employees with retroactive compensation, as we have done in past shutdowns.

"Authorizing back pay is an important step for federal workers, and ending the shutdown and opening the government so federal workers can get back to work and receive that back pay is even more crucial. The House Republican Leadership should immediately bring up the Senate-passed clean funding compromise, which would go directly to the President and open up the entire government for all of the American people now.

"Employees such as those at the FBI, U.S. Marshals Service, our park rangers, research scientists, food safety inspectors, aviation safety inspectors, Social Security claims representatives, custodians, and NASA engineers in my District and across America should not be punished because Congress couldn't get its job done."

Source