SCOTT DETROW, HOST:
It has been quite a week for federal workers caught in the middle of the government shutdown. Sunday, President Trump said mass layoffs were underway.
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PRESIDENT DONALD TRUMP: That's taking place right now, and it's all because of the Democrats.
DETROW: Monday, White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt walked back those claims.
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KAROLINE LEAVITT: The president was referring to the hundreds of thousands of federal workers who have been furloughed as a result of this federal government shutdown both here...
DETROW: And yesterday, a new threat - Trump and other top Republicans raised doubts over whether those furloughed workers would get paid once the government reopens.
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TRUMP: I would say it depends on who we're talking about. I can tell you this. The Democrats have put a lot of people in great risk and jeopardy, but it really depends on who you're talking about. But for the most part, we're going to take care of our people. There are some people that really don't deserve to be taken care of, and we'll take care of them in a different way.
DETROW: NPR labor and workplace correspondent Andrea Hsu and political reporter Stephen Fowler join us now to help make sense of all of this. Hi to both of you.
ANDREA HSU, BYLINE: Hi, Scott.
STEPHEN FOWLER, BYLINE: Hey, there.
DETROW: Stephen, I want to start with you. And let's start with this idea that some federal workers would not get back pay once the shutdown ends. Where does this come from?
FOWLER: So Scott, there's a law on the books that says after a shutdown, federal employees who were forced to work without pay and forced to not work because Congress couldn't fund the government - these employees get back pay. That law was signed in 2019 after the record 35-day funding lapse by then-President Trump, and here's what he said at the time.
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TRUMP: I will make sure that all employees receive their back pay very quickly or as soon as possible. It'll happen fast.
DETROW: OK. That was then. He signed the bill into law. What's changed?
FOWLER: Well, Trump's second term has been all about finding different ways to have less federal government and fewer people working for it. So after the shutdown started last week, the Office of Management and Budget removed a line from its frequently asked questions that noted this back pay provision, and an internal draft memo was circulated with a contradictory view of the law. Now, this draft memo argues that the hundreds of thousands of furloughed employees who aren't deemed essential to the government functioning aren't guaranteed their paychecks either unless Congress explicitly says so.
DETROW: Andrea, what are you hearing from workers and unions about this back pay issue?
HSU: Well, they're not buying this interpretation of the law. Many of these workers were around in 2019 when Congress passed the law, and they fully expect to get paid. And they tell me this is just another scare tactic.
DETROW: A scare tactic to get Democrats to concede in the shutdown - i that the thinking?
HSU: Yeah. And I spoke with Sarah Kobrin about this. She's a longtime employee of the National Cancer Institute. And to be clear, she spoke with me in her personal capacity, not on behalf of the government. She believes the Trump administration is just going to do what it wants, shutdown or not. In fact, her agency has already gone through mass layoffs. Grants that she was overseeing have been cut. And this has happened even as lower court judges have found those moves illegal. So here's what she had to say about the new threat over back pay.
SARAH KOBRIN: I believe this administration is behaving in a lawless way. So when I spoke to my husband before it happened, I said, am I certain I'm going to be paid back? No, because they're not following the law, but I am certain that is the law.
FOWLER: And Scott, it's not just federal workers and Democrats who are saying this. I mean, several budget experts I've spoken with say that the questions around back pay and some of the other proposals the White House is tying to the shutdown are misleading at best, like Jessica Riedl with the center-right Manhattan Institute. She says, as one example, the constant threat of mass layoffs because of the shutdown just doesn't reflect the reality of how these reductions in force actually have to work or who ultimately makes those decisions.
JESSICA RIEDL: It may be the case that we have more government employees at certain agencies than is necessary, but reduction-in-force decisions should be made based on long-term agency needs, not in response to a temporary shutdown.
DETROW: So Andrea, just to be clear - since we have been talking about this in so many different ways - about a week in, have there been any layoffs tied to the shutdown at this point?
HSU: Actually, no, not connected to the lapse in funding, anyway. There have been layoffs last week at the U.S. Patent and Trademark office, but those had already been in the works. And federal employees have used this moment to point out that whatever layoffs happen now are really just an extension of what's been happening since Trump came back to office and launched his Department of Government Efficiency.
I talked with Alexis Goldstein about this. She's with the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau and a member of the employees union there. She also spoke to me in her personal capacity. She is still working, still getting paid because her agency's funding does not come through annual appropriations from Congress. She says very little work is actually being done, and it's been like that since early this year when the Trump administration first tried to dismantle the CFPB. You know, for example, the agency is not monitoring the banks, which is what Congress created the CFPB to do after the 2008 financial crisis. Here's how she put it.
ALEXIS GOLDSTEIN: We're just very hamstrung. We're, like, frozen in an ice cube.
HSU: And Scott, we have asked the Trump administration for a response to this kind of criticism coming from federal employees. The White House spokeswoman, Abigail Jackson, sent a statement saying, President Trump was elected by a resounding majority of Americans to carry out the agenda he is implementing. And she said federal workers who are resisting the Trump agenda are working against the American people.
DETROW: All right. So we're hearing all of these people who feel like their paychecks or their future employment has been tied up as negotiating tactics. Stephen, where do those negotiations actually stand? What, if anything, is happening right now?
FOWLER: Well, Republicans in Congress don't have enough votes in the Senate to reopen the government. They're not willing to negotiate with the Democrats so far, who want Republicans to extend health care subsidies for millions of Americans. Meanwhile, Trump and his Office of Management and Budget director, Russ Vought, have been trying a lot of different things over the last few weeks and have sent mixed messaging about their purpose.
Some interpret it as a pressure campaign, while the administration says they're simply taking steps to mitigate spending in a shutdown. Those were things like terminating energy grants in places that didn't vote for Trump, holding up transit funding in Chicago and New York, and the constant threats to fire workers and/or not pay them, which, so far, none of these things have panned out or moved the needle in this shutdown fight.
DETROW: NPR's Stephen Fowler and Andrea Hsu, thanks to both of you.
FOWLER: Thank you.
HSU: You're welcome. Transcript provided by NPR, Copyright NPR.
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