When I first heard about “No Budget, No Pay” I thought it was a pretty smart measure. It’s a great incentive to break through political deadlock. After all, no matter where one falls on the political spectrum I think we can all agree it sucks to work and not get paid.
But as I look a bit further into this and see what the politicians are saying about it, I get the feeling this idea might be a template for eroding worker rights- making it possible for states or employers to tie compensation to an arbitrary level of satisfaction with performance.
The problem is not that congress and the senate are not present. This idea is not coming forth because of poor attendance. It’s that the work of these bodies has not provided a desired result, which is a lot different than simply not showing up.
And then the quote that inspired this thread, courtesy of Sen. Susan Collins, R-Maine:
Nope, sorry Susan. Just because it works doesn’t mean it’s good. I do not want to see this set down as a model for others to emulate. If I go to work I want to be paid for my work, not for how happy someone else is with it.
Having lawmakers try this out first is fiendishly clever. But as slippery as this particular slope may be, I can easily envision a future in which a person working for minimum wage doesn’t even receive that because the company isn’t satisfied with their performance or because standards are set impossibly high to cut down on payroll costs. I’d love to be wrong about this.
Are you under the impression that this isn’t already the case? Unless you are represented by a union that has negotiated specific terms, the very fact that you have a job is tied to arbitrary levels of satisfaction with performance. Absent a pre-negotiated salary package, they can link your compensation (above whatever minimum wage Congress sets) to any arbitrary factor they damn well please.
The company you work for cannot unilaterally change the agreement and change your compensation package without your consent, but they can change the compensation package and make your continued employment contingent upon your acceptance. Generally, they don’t completely go off the rails and make up entirely stupid compensation packages because they need to follow the law, and they need to attract people who want to show up and work.
The real problem with “no budget, no pay” is that for most congresspeople, their official salary is a negligible amount of money. Most of them were already rich to begin with, plus they have things like speaking fees, campaign funds, etc. It’s sort of like when a CEO accepts a salary of $1 per year (plus stock shares).
In a way “no budget, no pay” will be discriminating against the civic-minded politician that isn’t already filthy rich. If a politician really needs his pay check then he will be tempted to compromise early in the passage of a bill in order to continue receiving his pay check.
I heard that they aren’t really going without pay, the money is simply deferred until a budget is passed. Still not ideal for those in Congress but it isn’t like they are going to not get paid.