Shutdown 2018 – Federal Contractors Go Without Pay

While federal employees are generally reimbursed for days the government is shutdown thanks to legislation from Congress, contractors are not so lucky. Depending on the percentage of federal work companies take on and how large their commitments are, a shutdown can cause major headaches for a business. It’s relatively obvious that this is affecting large companies performing various military and IT contracts for the government, but it is also detrimental to thousands of low-income contractors working in federal buildings like security guards, janitors, and cafeteria workers.

President Donald Trump has stated that contractors support his effort to shut down the government over funding for the border wall, however unions that represent government employees and/or contractors such as the International Federation of Professional and Technical Engineers, the American Federation for Government Employees, and 32BJ SEIU strongly disagree. They believe that Trump should be aggressively working with Congress to come up with a solution that would allow the government to reopen. Hector Figueroa, President of 32BJ SEIU, a building service workers union that represents 163,000 members, stated that “Congress should … [return] to sensible proposals for security funding and re-opening the shuttered agencies immediately.”

Whatever the solution looks like, EZGovOpps Market Intelligence would like to see government contractors getting back to work quickly during a time of the year that people often need money most.