'Will Work for Pay': Furloughed Federal Workers Stage Sit-In Outside Senators' Offices in Washington

By Marissa J. Lang, The Washington Post

23 January 19

n the 33rd day of a partial government shutdown that has left hundreds of thousands of federal workers without pay, some staged a sit-in outside the offices of the senators they blame for helping to keep the government closed.

The protest, led by union leaders from the National Federation of Federal Employees, is meant to draw attention to the plight of federal workers — many of whom have had to dig into their savings, take on side jobs and seek help from food banks and other charitable programs to stay afloat.

On Wednesday, hundreds of out-of-work federal workers, union officials and supporters stood in silence for 33 minutes — one for each day of the longest government shutdown in American history.

Inside the Hart Senate Office Building, where protest signs are banned, workers instead wrote messages on Styrofoam plates.

“Jobs not walls,” read one.

“Will work for pay,” read another.

“Please let us work,” said several more.

The workers held the plates high, toward the windows of senators’ offices that overlook the atrium where they gathered.

With each minute that passed, organizers rang a chime that marked another day of the government impasse, another day of no work, no pay and growing desperation.

After 33 minutes, the crowd erupted into a chorus of chants: “No more food banks,” protesters shouted. “We need paychecks!”

They waved their plates to the beat. Some clapped. Others stomped their feet.

Blake Lorenz, 75, brandished his handwritten sign. On it was one word: “Hostage.”

Lorenz, a furloughed federal worker who manages satellite communications for NASA, said it’s how he has felt since the shutdown began on Dec. 22.

“I think we’re being used as pawns,” he said. “What does me doing my job at NASA have to do with a wall?”

Helene Lonang, 55, scrawled a plea for back pay for federal contractors on her plate. As a security guard at the Smithsonian, she is not sure she will be able to recoup her weeks of lost wages.

Lonang, an immigrant from Cameroon, said she’s fallen behind on her mortgage. She hasn’t been able to pay for her 16-year-old daughter’s tutoring lessons. While she usually sends money to family abroad, she said, in recent weeks she’s barely had enough to get by.

She’s begun looking for temporary work, but all she wants is her job back.

“It’s not only my family who is hurting,” she said. “Some days I cry because there is no help for us. I hope this makes Trump and the government realize we need our jobs. ... I wish they would please let us go back to work.”

On Friday, hundreds of thousands of workers will face the loss of a second paycheck.

“We want senators to see the faces of the people who are being hurt by this (shutdown), and to tell them it’s time to stop holding federal employees hostage,” said Brittany Holder, a spokeswoman for the NFFE.

The protest began at noon in the Hart building, where about 50 lawmakers have offices.

Union leaders and a handful of federal workers planned to proceed to the offices of senators, whom they hope to lobby for a vote on a bill that would reopen the government through September and postpone the stalled debate over border security and funding for a wall on the U.S.-Mexico border.

The demonstration comes one day before the Senate is scheduled to vote on a pair of competing bills to reopen the government — one from Democrats and one from President Trump. Neither bill appeared likely to earn the support needed to advance.

Trump’s proposal would open the government through Sept. 30, while also earmarking $5.7 billion for a border wall, granting temporary deportation protections to about 1 million undocumented immigrants and altering asylum rules — a new wrinkle that Democrats described as a nonstarter.

The Democrats’ bill would fund the government through Feb. 8 without providing new money for Trump’s proposed border wall. Proponents have said the stopgap measure would allow both parties to negotiate on border security, while allowing federal employees to get back to work.

Federal employees rallied outside the White House earlier this month in a demonstration aimed at the president. Though the workers assembled there varied in political leanings, nearly all said they felt used — like pawns.

“They can lie, they can steal, they can bring the United States government to its knees, but we’re going to be fighting, we’re going to be marching, and we are going to make sure to hold Mitch McConnell accountable,” Jeffery David Cox, president of the American Federation of Government Employees said in an address to the crowd of hundreds gathered on Jan. 10, referring to the Senate Majority Leader. “Mitch, do your job.”

The crowd shouted back, taking up the call: “Do your job,” they chanted. “Do your job.”