WASHINGTON – On Monday, Congresswoman Eleanor Holmes Norton (D-DC) waded into the fray over furloughed Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) employees and construction workers who are essentially unemployed until Congress ends the stoppage. Norton insisted that the workers were suffering at the hands of a Congress that did not do its job. “Congress is on the verge of a month-long recess, but there is still urgent unfinished business to do for the more than 90,000 FAA employees and construction workers who are out of work, because Congress did not do its work,” says Norton.
Working in cooperation with Congressman Alcee L. Hastings (D-FL) of the Rules Committee, she co-sponsored a bill to allow the 4,000 furloughed FAA employees, including 1,000 in the region, to return to work immediately and to receive back pay for the period they have been furloughed.
Norton says if Congress takes its recess “without passing a short-term FAA extension bill, thousands of people here and in 35 states will unnecessarily be furloughed for at least a month in the middle of harsh economic times.” She says members of the House must act as early as tomorrow. “If the House is in session tomorrow, we must pass an extension bill to get these furloughed workers back on the job,” she insists.
