MENDOTA, Calif. (KFSN) — With the government shut down, around 750,000 federal employees are either furloughed, or being forced to work, with hopes they’ll be paid in the future.
Employees at the Federal Correctional Institution (FCI) in Mendota are apart of those considered essential, and must keep working.
“A lot of our staff live paycheck to paycheck so grocery stores don’t take ‘I owe yous’ babysitters don’t take ‘I owe yous’ and you can’t put hopes and dreams in your gas tank to get to and from work,” said Aaron McGlothin with the American Federation of Government Employees for FCI Mendota.
Back in 2018, during President Trump’s first term, those same workers were subjected to a record 35-day shutdown.
“Our staff, they put their lives on the line every single day dealing with these offenders, and going to work with these already stressful times, it’s just an extra stressor that we don’t need,” he added.
“Republicans started with a clean CR so we didn’t put anything in it that should be controversial. It was the continuing of existing appropriations that was started under the Biden administration so I don’t know what we have to give,” Republican congressman David Valadao said.
“It will result, if we do not do this, in millions of Americans losing their health care coverage. That’s why we’re withholding our support,” Democratic congressman Jim Costa explained. “I think we’re left with no alternative but to ask the administration and our Republican colleagues to negotiate on these two critical items.”
The next vote won’t come until Friday at the earliest as Senators are out for Yom Kippur.
While hundreds of thousands of employees are going without pay during the shutdown, lawmakers on Capitol Hill continue to get paid their nearly $174,000 salaries.
Some lawmakers will continue to get paid through the shut down, though some like Jim Costa, will refuse or donate their pay.
