Furloughed federal employees and liberal activists staged a protest outside Senate offices on Wednesday, the 33rd day of the partial government shutdown. The group stood silently for 33 minutes, one for each day that the workers have been furloughed, and held up empty plates to symbolize the workers’ missing paychecks and bare cupboards.
Wednesday’s protest was being led by the American Federation of Government Employees, and held two days before 800,000 federal workers miss their second paycheck on Friday. About 200 people were present for the event, a mixed group of furloughed federal workers and sympathetic activists.
“We want senators to see the faces of the people who are being hurt by this, and to tell them it’s time to stop holding federal employees hostage,” said union spokesperson Brittany Holder.
Large protest forming in Hart against the shutdown pic.twitter.com/Z6zZ6yEVaC
— Joe Perticone (@JoePerticone) January 23, 2019
About 50 lawmakers have offices at Hart Senate Office Building, where the sit-in protest started at noon.
“It has been a lot of confusion and anxiety. I’ve just been trying to find a way to stay busy,” said Ryan Baugh, a furloughed worker from the Department of Homeland Security’s Office of Immigration Statistics and a shop steward for AFGE.
He said the problems caused by the shutdown won’t end even when the government does reopen, because his office is so backed up now. “A lot of important work is not being done and a lot of it may never be done,” he said.
33 minutes of silent protest here in Hart Senate Office Building for each day of shutdown. Federal workers from various unions holding plates to show they need to feed their families. pic.twitter.com/oNtmwRtgAZ
— Kelly O’Donnell (@KellyO) January 23, 2019
Many federal workers have said they’ve had to dig into their savings and seek help from food banks and other programs to keep stable without their paychecks.
Aquilla Nelson, a librarian for the Justice Department, has worked for the government for 25 years, but said that the current shutdown has topped any of the previous ones. “Back in the day there was always a sense of urgency that things needed to reopen soon,” he said. “That is not happening this time. You can only watch so much TV.”
Nelson has missed two paychecks so far and is afraid he’ll go without a third. His wife still works, so they’re getting by for the moment, he said, but the debts are piling are up and he is running out of options. “The people who have been calling about the bills have been willing to work with me so far,” he said. “But you can only keep that up for so long, and this doesn’t look like it is going to end anytime soon.”
The government went into partial shutdown on Dec. 22 when President Trump and Democratic leadership could not agree on a funding bill that included money for Trump’s border wall.
A Treasury Department worker, who requested anonymity in order to speak freely, said the department had recently had to send out a second round of letters to tell workers they were furloughed because the original letters announcing this were only for 30 days. “We’ve never had to do that before because we have never had a shutdown that lasted this long,” the worker noted.
The protest took place a day before the Senate is scheduled to vote on two competing bills, one from Trump and another from Democrats, to reopen the government.
The proposed bill from Trump would keep the federal agencies funded through Sept. 30, but includes the $5.7 billion allocation for a physical barrier at the southern border, which Democrats say they will not support.
The Democratic bill would temporarily fund the government through Feb. 8, but would not include any money for the wall. Democrats say this measure would allow time for the parties to negotiate on border security, while also allowing federal workers to be paid.
“We can have these important debates even while operating the government,” Baugh said.
While most workers at the rally blamed Trump for the shutdown, a few were getting tired of the fact that neither side was budging. “There has to be some sort of compromise they can reach,” Nelson said. “If not a wall, some sort of border security. Something.”
