As furloughs loom, unions try to soften sequester blow for federal workers

Wash Post ^ | 2/22/13 | Lisa Rein

[jimbo123]

Federal government labor unions and agency managers are bargaining over how and when to carry out first-of-their-kind furloughs of more than a million employees as deep spending cuts are all but certain to kick in Friday.

Union leaders cannot stop the furloughs or determine who in each agency must take them. They say their best option is to soften the pain of unpaid days, which could slash federal pay by up to 20 percent this fiscal year.

-snip-

This would be the first time that furloughs across the federal government would occur with no chance that lost pay would be recovered.

[norton]

Oops! Abstruse

[Lancey Howard]

Fortunately, I never have any business with the federal government except, of course, when they are confiscating the fruits of my labor through their IRS. We should have “sequestration” cuts every year. Then the government would grow ever more huge at a slightly slower rate.

[Lancey Howard]

We started out the week with 700,000 people getting fired. By Wednesday, it was up to 800,000. Now it’s over a million. At this rate, we’ll have our smaller government by end of winter.

From your keyboard to God's screen...

[SueRae]

Well said. I didn’t like the tone/class warfare that the conversation is taking..here and on the outside. Yes, there is waste..and if any of these agencies didn’t see this coming as an eventuality and start planning early last year then their management should be among the first to go. I came out of the defense/aerospace industry...and our top leaders were preparing a long while ago. Of course, the 0bama administration snowed them into holding off on layoff notices just before the election. They have been scaling back. When some of my activity got cut late last year, I could see the writing on the wall and volunteered for a layoff, effective last month. A little earlier than planned...but I’ll do okay. I’ve been fortunate though, and have saved for a long time..and haven’t had any surprises. I feel for those that are being played like pawns in some D.C. power struggle, though...and wish well to all affected.

[Intolerant in NJ]

They say their best option is to soften the pain of unpaid days, which could slash federal pay by up to 20 percent this fiscal year...this is crap - Transportation Secretary LaHood was on TV yesterday wailing that he was going to lose one billion dollars in the "cutback" (actually a reduction in the increased spending planned for next year) - on a seventy billion dollar budget - that's less than two percent - if the entire budget went into employee salaries, that would work out to one day off for each employee every three months, and if it didn't then cutbacks should be made in none-employee areas - virtually every working family in the country suffered a two percent cut in take home pay last January 1st - where's the government concern for them?......