The House approved a bill 470-0 to mandate retroactive pay for the nearly 800,000 federal employees on furlough because of the government shutdown, Federal News Radio reported Friday.
Jack Moore writes the Federal Employee Retroactive Pay Fairness Act was put forward by Reps. Jim Moran (D-Va.) and Frank Wolf (R-Va.) on Wednesday and fast-tracked to a vote by the House Rules Committee the following day.
A similar bill proposed by Sen. Ben Cardin (D-Md.) was already circulating in the Senate, the station reports.
“It does provide these federal employees some peace of mind that they will get paid. These folks didn’t bring this about,†Moran said.
Under the bill, workers on unpaid leave or forced to work through the shutdown without pay will receive salaries owed them once the government reopens, according to Federal News Radio.
