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Low-Wage Federal Contractors Brace For No Pay During Likely Government Shutdown
9:14 AM
Low-Wage Federal Contractors Brace For No Pay During Likely Government Shutdown
Amanda Michelle Gomez
Carroll Rodgers of D.C. cleans steps in the Capitol Visitor Center on Capitol Hill.
Susan Walsh / AP Photo
During the last federal government shutdown, back in 2018, Maria Reyes could not work at her custodial job at the U.S. Department of Labor in downtown D.C. for 35 days, forcing her to give up the room she was renting and move in with her son. ... As the prospect of another government shutdown approaches — the third in the past decade — Reyes is once again very worried about how she’ll afford her rent and expenses, she tells DCist/WAMU. She needs that $1,200 check that’s supposed to arrive on Oct. 6 to survive. Her brother in El Salvador also relies on her paychecks. She sends him money to pay for medicine to manage his kidney disease. ... “Everyone is going to be affected if the government shuts down,” Reyes says in Spanish. “I don’t understand why they want to shut it down again. The last time it happened, it was crisis.”
As far-right Congressional Republicans hold the government spending bill hostage, millions of federal employees and contractors across the country are bracing for a stoppage in pay. Some employees deemed essential will work without pay and many more will be furloughed. But unlike people who are directly employed by the federal government, contractors are not guaranteed to get back pay once the shutdown ends.
The federal government relies heavily on contractors; by one estimate, there are roughly three contract employees for every federal employee. In the District and surrounding suburbs, thousands of these contractors are low-wage workers who keep Congress and federal agencies fed, cleaned, and safe at the office. Many of these workers are deeply concerned about what a shutdown will mean for them and their families, given the hardship they faced just five years ago.
“For a lot of these workers, going a day without pay is the difference between putting food on the table and paying the bills,” says Jaime Contreras, the executive vice president of SEIU 32BJ, which represents 2,400 federally-contracted janitors and security officers. “Congress needs to really practice common sense and not put workers through this.” ... Nearly half of the union’s members were furloughed during the last government shutdown, according to Contreras. Some of them lost their homes like Reyes did; Contreras says; others could not pay other bills or purchase food for themselves and their families, he says.
{snip}
Low-Wage Federal Contractors Brace For No Pay During Likely Government Shutdown
Amanda Michelle Gomez
Carroll Rodgers of D.C. cleans steps in the Capitol Visitor Center on Capitol Hill.
Susan Walsh / AP Photo
During the last federal government shutdown, back in 2018, Maria Reyes could not work at her custodial job at the U.S. Department of Labor in downtown D.C. for 35 days, forcing her to give up the room she was renting and move in with her son. ... As the prospect of another government shutdown approaches — the third in the past decade — Reyes is once again very worried about how she’ll afford her rent and expenses, she tells DCist/WAMU. She needs that $1,200 check that’s supposed to arrive on Oct. 6 to survive. Her brother in El Salvador also relies on her paychecks. She sends him money to pay for medicine to manage his kidney disease. ... “Everyone is going to be affected if the government shuts down,” Reyes says in Spanish. “I don’t understand why they want to shut it down again. The last time it happened, it was crisis.”
As far-right Congressional Republicans hold the government spending bill hostage, millions of federal employees and contractors across the country are bracing for a stoppage in pay. Some employees deemed essential will work without pay and many more will be furloughed. But unlike people who are directly employed by the federal government, contractors are not guaranteed to get back pay once the shutdown ends.
The federal government relies heavily on contractors; by one estimate, there are roughly three contract employees for every federal employee. In the District and surrounding suburbs, thousands of these contractors are low-wage workers who keep Congress and federal agencies fed, cleaned, and safe at the office. Many of these workers are deeply concerned about what a shutdown will mean for them and their families, given the hardship they faced just five years ago.
“For a lot of these workers, going a day without pay is the difference between putting food on the table and paying the bills,” says Jaime Contreras, the executive vice president of SEIU 32BJ, which represents 2,400 federally-contracted janitors and security officers. “Congress needs to really practice common sense and not put workers through this.” ... Nearly half of the union’s members were furloughed during the last government shutdown, according to Contreras. Some of them lost their homes like Reyes did; Contreras says; others could not pay other bills or purchase food for themselves and their families, he says.
{snip}