The National Treasury Employees Union became the second federal employees’ union to file a lawsuit against the Trump administration over the shutdown.
Tuesday’s collective action alleges more than 400,000 federal employees – including tens of thousands of NTEU members – are being forced to work without pay during the partial government closure.
The complaint asked that the named plaintiff, Customs and Border Protection Officer Albert Vieira, and other similarly classified individuals be paid owed wages.
The government stalemate began Dec. 22. Since then, many federal agencies have temporarily closed and workers’ compensation has been indefinitely delayed because of a lapse in appropriated funds. Even so, employees deemed “essential” or “excepted” have been expected to come to work. “Essential” government employees are those – like Vieira – who are “performing emergency work involving the safety of human life or the protection of property.”
The Department of Homeland Security deployed Vieira to the southwest border in November. The transfer was part of an “agencywide initiative to combat illegal immigration,” according to court documents; Vieira is scheduled to remain there until Jan. 13.
Since the shutdown began, Vieira has continued to work six days a week. Like most federal employees, he is scheduled to receive a paycheck (for wages earned between Dec. 23 and Jan. 5) next week. Court documents also allege Vieira worked a 12-hour overtime shift Dec. 22, for which he is owed.
Tony Reardon, president of the National Treasury Employees Union, which represents 150,000 members at 33 federal agencies and departments, previously called the shutdown “a travesty.”
“Federal employees should not have to pay the personal price for all of this dysfunction,” Reardon said.
During a 16-day shutdown in 2013, a Washington-based law firm sued the government over the funding for former president Barack Obama’s health-care law. Attorneys argued that failure to pay federal workers on their regularly scheduled payday violated the Fair Labor Standards Act.
A court agreed, ruling the FLSA requires on-time payment of any minimum or overtime wages earned by employees falling within its coverage. It ordered the government to pay double the amount owed them. There are 25,000 employees still waiting to receive those damages.
The lawsuit quotes President Donald Trump’s acting chief of staff, Mick Mulvaney, who warned earlier this week “payroll will not go out as originally planned” if the stalemate did not end by midnight Tuesday.
It did not.
Now, on Wednesday, the impasse continues with no end in sight.
Trump addressed the nation Tuesday evening and blamed congressional Democrats for the “growing humanitarian and security crisis” at the southern border.
“Democrats in Congress have refused to acknowledge the crisis, and they have refused to provide our brave border agents with the tools they desperately need to protect our families and our nation,” he said in the televised nine-minute appeal.
Democrats, in their rebuttal, argued border security should be discussed separately from the shutdown after the government is reopened.
As the partial shutdown entered its third week, Trump announced he was considering declaring a national emergency and circumventing Congress to begin construction of the U.S.-Mexico border wall.
White House press secretary Sarah Sanders added Wednesday that the president is still thinking of doing so.
