A sign announcing the closure of the Library of Congress is seen on the first day of the government shutdown in Washington on October 1. Photo by Bonnie Cash/UPI | License Photo
Federal employee union leaders and members say being furloughed or still working, but without pay, has created personal hardships as the government sits largely idle during the second week of a shutdown.
And for many, the shutdown over funding has deepened concerns about the long-term erosion of the federal workforce. Agencies already operating with limited staffing could face additional strain as employees decide public service is not worth the stress and leave.
“It’s my opinion that we have functionally been in a shutdown, or at least a partial shutdown, for eight months now,” said James Kirwan, legislative affairs director of the National Labor Relations Board Union.
“Since January, one-eighth of the federal workforce is gone. That’s over 300,000 federal workers who were either fired or pressured to take the deferred resignation program. As a result, a lot of programs are dealing with much smaller capacities.”
Kirwan, who is furloughed, spends his days meeting with congressional representatives to advocate for federal worker protections in future budgets. The National Labor Relations Board, where he works overseeing private-sector union disputes, is almost entirely shuttered.
“I think 99.8% of the National Labor Relations Board is furloughed,” he said. “If you are an employee claiming you’ve been fired because of anti-union discrimination, there’s nothing you can do right now. There’s no legal mechanism at your disposal to get your job back.”
Kirwan said he remains committed to his role at the NLRB, but fears for the future of federal service, noting that while government jobs have never been the highest paying, they historically offered stability, union protections and flexibility. But now these benefits are eroding as collective bargaining agreements lapse and layoffs continue.
“Twenty percent of the federal workforce is GS-7 or below, which basically means that they make less than $30,000 or $35,000 a year. We’re talking upward of 200,000 federal employees,” he said.
“For them, not receiving a paycheck is potentially devastating because it means that they have to take out more credit card debt, loans — things that can put them in financial jeopardy.”
While Kirwan is grounded in Washington, others feel the effects of the shutdown across the country.
James Jones, based in Boone, N.C., a representative of Local 446 with the American Federation of Government Employees, works for the National Park Service. He said the shutdown hit at one of the worst possible times — the fall season in the Blue Ridge Mountains.
“It’s the fall color season. Our park gets very busy during this time of year, probably the busiest time of the year for us. We don’t have enough maintenance folks to really keep up with the amount of traffic that is coming into the park each day,” he said.
Jones told UPI that one or two Park Service workers visit the parks each day to clean the bathrooms and take out trash, but it’s not enough. With parks remaining open without proper staffing, he said a bigger mess will await them when they eventually return — if they do.
“We work for Americans, we serve the American public, and the longer we’re out of work, the larger the toll it’s going to take on these public services,” Jones said.
An Army veteran, Jones has been through several shutdowns and shared frustrations regarding the constant political gridlock and its wear on morale.
“It kind of makes me angry because I’d rather be at work. Not just collecting a paycheck, but I’m pretty committed to the National Park Service and its ideas and mission, and I’d like to be there doing my job,” he said.
He added that the frustrations lie deeper than just financial uncertainty, but it affects other means of living, as well.
“It’s not just the back pay, it’s all your benefits. It’s the longer the shutdown lasts, we’re losing annual leave, we’re losing sick leave, we’re losing retirement benefits, our health care premiums aren’t being paid,” Jones said.
While in Chicago at the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, Colin Smalley, president of the International Federation of Professional and Technical Engineers Local 777, described a similar sense of exhaustion. Even before the shutdown, he said, agencies were grappling with what he called a “brain drain.”
“We have people who are in their field, people in the design of a project from 20 to 25 years ago, and they still are around to inspect these federal projects. We do levees, flood control, reservoirs and other things that protect our communities,” he said.
Smalley added: “We have people who have that long-reaching expertise and institutional knowledge who are walking out the door, and that really puts a stress on our ability to deliver the project.”
Despite assurances that workers wouldn’t be expected to handle more work to compensate for staffing losses, Smalley said they are still under pressure to meet the same deadlines with fewer people.
Although he expressed frustration with political leadership, he said this crisis has only deepened his commitment to the work.
“This whole episode is reinforcing my commitment to public service,” he said. “It reinforces the way I feel about serving my own communities. … My biggest fear is a slow descent into loss — of expertise, resources and the sense of common good that holds us together.”
