If the Obama administration and Congress are unable to agree on a plan for funding the government past the Sept. 30 end of the current fiscal year, the White House should fight to ensure that federal employees who are idled for the period of any partial government shutdown get back pay, a federal employee union official said in a recent letter.

Gregory J. Junemann, president of the International Federation of Professional and Technical Engineers, said in his Sept. 19 letter to Sylvia Burwell, director of the Office of Management and Budget, that he understands why the administration is standing up to an effort led by House Republicans to tie fiscal year 2014 government appropriations to the defunding of the 2010 Affordable Care Act.

"If, however, there is no compromise made before the end of the fiscal year and a government shutdown caused by the House majority does occur, IFPTE insists that our nation's federal employees are made whole when they eventually return back to work," Junemann wrote.

"We urge the Obama Administration not to use federal worker back pay as a bargaining chip to extract something in return. Rather we ask that it be made clear from the very start of any negotiation that government workers will get every penny owed to them when the government reopens," he added.

The House in a 230-189 vote Sept. 20 approved a stopgap bill (H.J. Res. 59) that would fund the government through mid-December but also defund the Affordable Care Act, setting the stage for a showdown with the Senate and the president as time runs short for lawmakers to enact a funding measure before the current fiscal year expires.

Federal employees who were told not to report to work during the last two partial government shutdowns--a five-day shutdown in November 1995 and a 21-day shutdown between mid-December 1995 and early January 1996, according to an Aug. 6 report from the Congressional Research Service--were eventually provided with back pay for the periods in which they missed work. However, it is unclear whether the current Congress will be easily persuaded to provide back pay to federal workers in the event of a shutdown.

In other public sector news:

• The Federal Retirement Thrift Investment Board, in determining whether federal civilian employees or military personnel participating in the Thrift Savings Plan are married, will look to the laws of the jurisdiction in which the marriage celebration occurred, according to an interim final rule from the board.

• The Office of Management and Budget issued a memorandum urging federal agency heads to prepare for the possibility of a partial government shutdown if Congress and the Obama administration are unable to agree on a way to fund the government past the Sept. 30 end of fiscal year 2013.

• After the collapse of a tentative agreement between the Chicago Police Department and the union representing its 1,100 sergeants, an arbitration panel awarded the sergeants an 8 percent wage increase over four years, but sidestepped the controversial issue of a pension overhaul.

• The state of New Hampshire and the State Employees' Association of New Hampshire, a Service Employees International Union local that represents about 10,000 state workers, are moving to fact-finding to resolve a labor dispute after mediated contract talks deadlocked over health care costs.