Name:   Talullahhound - Subject:   RIF Date:   1/15/2019 9:24:10 PM

The back pay is not automatic.  Congress has to determine if back pay is warranted.  In the past, it was viewed that the government shutdown is due to no fault of the employees.  The longer this goes on, the less chance for back pay to be gratned (in my opinion).  Since management declares who is "essential" and who is "non-essentail", only essentail employees are allow to show up and work.  I suspect in the past that they have just made it blanket for everyone, because it is easier and less likely to engender lawsuits.  

Regarding a RIF beiing a good way to reduce government.  RIFs cost the government money in the short term, because severance pay will be due.  RIFs usually hurt the lowest graded employees (unless they are veterans).  When they eliminate jobs, the people that are in those jobs have the right to bump lower grade employees, who likely have less time with the government.  To further complicate it - Verterans have preference and generally can't be bumped -(disabled vets are the most protected - they are called 10 pt. veterans) other veterans are 5 point veterans) then comes every one else.  So if a disabled veteran's job were eliminated, he would have bumping rights of 5 pt veteran, who would then be able to bump someone with no military service.  From there it goes by years of service - there is a roster, so you can see exactly where you stand and who you can bump or not.  And it is also divided by "supervsiory or non-supervisory" so each of those have their own list and bumping rights.  So poeple start bumping downward and the people that actually go out the door are the youngest or less time in service.  It's complicated, it takes months, and it is very expensive in the short term.  Further, if you are bumped from a GS-9 to a GS-7, you retain your pay as a GS-9 for two years (while you are doing GS-7 work) and if you regain your old grade (GS-9), you will gain 2 steps of pay on your repromotion.  Senior Executives and Polical appointees are exmept, of course.  All these things require months of prior notice, and written notification before anything can happen.  A person can be bumped multiple times.  At one point there was talk about taking the last 2 performance appraisals into account, but that system is so over inflated, and I don't know that it would make much difference.  

I got riffed early in my career from a GS-5 to a GS-4.  But I had the right to apply for jobs as a GS-7 and was promoted.  

Oh, and one thing I forgot to mention - before you can have a RIF, you have to offer an "early out", so that anyone within range of retirement, can go out on retirement.  They've been running them for years now, so I'm not sure how many people are left that fall linto that category ( you have to have 30 years and you lose 2% of the retirement pay for every year you are under 55).  

And let me say this - just because somone is designated "non-essential" in a shutdown, does not mean their job is not important.  While they are sitting at home on furlough, their work in piling up and they will have a huge backlog when they get back to work.There is generally only 3-5 people per office that are desigated "essentail" and all that means is that they will be there to keep minimal operations going.  Unless by policy change or legislative change, their work does not go away.  

If you want to reduce govenrment you either have to change why the job exists via consilidation or elimination, they not let the job be filled when someone retires or quits.  These days, it just means that they will hire some contractor to do the job - which BTW, cost the government just as much, but the color of the money is different, so it looks like you have done soemthing.