All Work And No Pay = Commonwealth Employee

I believe the laws addressing non-payment of wages are brutal -- penalties, attorneys' fees, personal liablity, multiplied damages -- designed to terrorize employers to a point at which they wouldn't dream of stiffing employees.

In a better competent world, leaders of state government would set aside their ideological differences, partisan divide and personal failings long enough to recognize the indecency of causing state employees to work without paychecks. Those employees and their families are being held hostage because neither political faction knows when or how they could be used for political points. Personal liability for withholding wages, imposed on the leaders of the executive and legislative branches, would be a fitting consequence.

I would call those responsible for abusing the state employees pond scum, but that would unfairly disparage congealed algae.