N.M. LAWMAKERS MAKE APPEAL FOR CONTRACTOR BACK PAY DURING SHUTDOWN

With New Mexico’s weapons laboratories initiating shutdown plans this week, four of the state’s lawmakers want to make sure contractor employees at the labs get paid if they’re out of work. House-passed legislation that is supported by the Obama Administration would ensure that furloughed federal workers are retroactively paid for time during the shutdown, but that bill would not impact the thousands of contractor employees across the weapons complex that are slated to be furloughed starting Oct. 21 if the government shutdown continues. “While the employees of New Mexico’s national laboratories are not included within the bill’s specific terms, Congress clearly intends that those workers who provide such vital services for our nation should be insulated from the effects of a protracted shutdown,” Sens. Martin Heinrich (D) and Tom Udall (D) as well as Reps. Ben Ray Lujan (D) and Michelle Lujan Grisham (D) wrote in an Oct. 8 letter to Energy Secretary Ernest Moniz.