As Trump’s shutdown (or Pelosi’s, if you prefer) continues, some federal workers have been ordered to work without pay. To illustrate, TSA and Coast Guard personnel are now protecting America while receiving no pay. This raises the moral question of whether it is ethical to compel federal workers to work without pay. It is important to note that the ethics are distinct from the legality of unpaid labor. That is a matter for the courts to sort out based on how they read the rules.
One sensible starting point is to consider that federal workers agreed to work without pay when they accepted their jobs—that this occurs is well known and is presumably even spelled out somewhere. Since the workers accepted the jobs, they consented to work without pay—thus making it ethical to force them to work without pay. This must, of course, assume that the workers signed the contracts without duress and with full knowledge that they would be required to work without pay under certain conditions. If the workers were not properly informed of this or the contracts were accepted under duress, then they would have no moral obligation to obey such a forced or fraudulent agreement. That said, there is still the concern about what people can ethically agree to.
Philosophers have, of course, considered whether there are limits to what people can agree to. For example, it has been argued that a person cannot freely agree to become the property of another—because it is unethical to own people, because the ownership of one’s self is nontransferable, or for a variety of other reasons. As such, it is worth considering whether a person can agree to work for free, even when doing so might harm them.
One way to approach this matter is to consider the fact that people do agree to work for free. A good example is volunteer work: this unpaid labor is extremely common and is not only acceptable, but often worthy of praise. As such, it would be absurd to claim that it is wrong for people to agree to work for free. But what if someone is compelled to work for free? That is, what if they cannot quit the job and are thus forced to work for free? This would seem to be something that a person cannot ethically agree to—they are, in effect, agreeing to a form of slavery in which they must work, are not paid and cannot quit. Even if they were paid, it would still be a form of slavery—after all, the key aspect of slavery is not working without compensation, it is the lack of freedom. Not being compensated simply makes it worse. As such, federal workers should be free to quit immediately and without any consequences—otherwise the state would be claiming a right to enslave citizens, which is morally wicked.
It might be argued that those who entered into long term agreements with the state, such as a term of service, are obligated to stay in the job and quitting because they are not getting paid would be wrong. While this has some appeal, this would require accepting that a person can, morally, be locked into working without compensation even when doing so would be extremely harmful to them. This would seem to expect far too much of people. Naturally, it could be countered that if they freely entered into a long-term agreement that included the possibility of working without pay, then they are obligated to stick to that agreement—even if they are harmed. After all, a contract is a contract.
While this does seem sensible, it also seems sensible to argue that such agreements should not include the no-pay possibility. That is, it is immoral for this to be included in agreements of this sort—even if people agree to accept the terms. As such, federal workers should always be paid for their work or allowed to terminate their agreements with no harmful consequences being imposed. After all, no one has the right to expect people to labor for free and to demand that would be immoral.
Well, first of all, there is nothing “forced” about it – at least not anything even remotely close to slavery. Maybe there will be financial consequences – they may lose unvested portions of their pensions, for example, or have some sort of contract-violation civil suit filed against them. But no one is holding them against their will, keeping them in chains, standing over them with a whip or a shotgun.
The fact is that they are no more held to their jobs than any of the rest of us. Any of us may or may not face a variety of consequences if we leave our jobs.
But Trump just signed legislation guaranteeing paychecks to all government workers who were furloughed, to be issued when the shutdown is over and their respective agencies receive their funding. This essentially turns unpaid leave into paid leave, albeit with “deferred compensation”.
For those workers considered “essential”, who have been asked to stay on and work without compensation – I’m not certain that this legislation covers them, but there has been a pretty consistent precedent that does cover their back pay. So maybe these workers don’t want to quit because once the shutdown is over, they won’t get this back pay, and they won’t have a job to come back to.
But that’s not really slavery, is it?
In fact, I’ve had something similar in my life, though in the private sector. I worked for a startup that got pretty big pretty fast – and early on I was offered a pretty nice stock option package.
For anyone who doesn’t know what that is – it’s a legal document that binds the company to sell me a certain amount of shares at a very low price sometime in the future. For example, my option may allow me to by the stock at $1 per share after five years. Sometimes called “golden handcuffs”, the options are given to key employees who will work to increase the value of the company over those five years, regardless of a bumpy road along the way.
So what happened was that the upper management took some risks and leveraged the company a little too much – and was unable, for a time, to pay salaries. I was asked to work for nothing for a few pay periods. Had I left (as many did), I would have given up my options. I was also not yet vested in the company portion of my 401K – so I had a pretty tough choice. There was a lot of incentive for me to stay, a stiff consequence if I left – but no one was forcing anyone to do anything. (I stayed – I vested in the 401K, and the price of the stock went up considerably. )
Of course, all the government has to offer is back pay and continued employment, but while there may be pressure, while there may be negative consequences, there is nothing forced about it, and it isn’t even close to being slavery.
However, and for a different reason, I think it’s HUGELY unethical for these wealthy Senators and Representatives to hold on to their pay when they can easily afford to go without (I’d like to meet the TSA agent, the Air Traffic Controller, or the Coast Guard midshipman worth $100 million, like Nancy Pelosi, or even $1 million, like Chuck Schumer).
Donald Trump, on the other hand, has vowed to return his paychecks to the government, or donate them to charity. True to form, his detractors are insisting on paperwork to prove this, and calling him a liar if he refuses to provide such documentation. But the Constitution is clear on this issue – regardless of what Trump does with the money, the country is required to pay his $400,000 salary. That, too, should stop way before the lowly TSA agents’ salaries.
I wonder how difficult it would be to arrange for no-interest bridge loans for furloughed workers and those who are working without pay. Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac guarantee mortgages for unqualified homebuyers – seems furloughed workers would represent a much better risk.