Introduction of the Low-Wage Federal Contractor Employee Back Pay Act

Floor Speech

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Ms. NORTON. Madam Speaker, today, I introduce the Low-Wage Federal Contractor Employee Back Pay Act to grant back pay to federally contracted retail, food, custodial and security service workers who are furloughed during the current and any other federal government shutdown this fiscal year (fiscal year 2019). This bill applies to all three branches of the federal government. After government shutdowns, federal workers have received back pay, but not federal contract workers, who often perform the same jobs as civil servants. While I believe that all federal employees and federal contract workers should receive back pay after a shutdown, we know that we cannot get Congress to make whole all who are hurt by a shutdown. Therefore, my bill focuses specifically on low-wage federal contract workers, some of whom work here on the Capitol Grounds providing Members of Congress and congressional staff with daily services, because these are the workers most likely to be irretrievably hurt by lost wages during a shutdown.

Many federal contract workers earn little more than the minimum wage and receive few, if any, benefits. While some are unionized with a little better wage, all are the lowest-paid workers in the federal government and should not be penalized because Congress has failed to do its job to keep the government functioning. Congress, historically, has provided back pay to federal employees furloughed during government shutdowns, who often work in the same buildings as these low-wage contract workers, but not to low-wage contract workers. However, both groups of workers deserve to be made whole after shutdowns. I recognize, of course, that contract workers are employees of contractors, but the distinction between federal workers and, at least, the lowest-paid contract workers, who, for example, keep buildings clean, fails when it comes to a deliberate government shutdown. Unlike many other contractors, those who employ low-wage service workers have little latitude to help make up for lost wages. Low-wage, federally contracted service workers can least afford the loss of pay during a shutdown and should not have to go without back pay while everyone else in their federal buildings receives back pay.

The nation's capital is the high-profile home of the federal government's complicity with contractors who pay low wages through leases and contracts with federal agencies. At least this legislation would provide some parity to their low-wage federal contract workers.

I strongly urge my colleagues to support the legislation.

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