By Gary Fields
Washington Wire
WASHINGTON — Eric Young, president of the American Federation of Government Employees Council of Local Prisons 33 said Tuesday that the government shutdown has left hundreds of prison-system employees, including some prison officers, wondering what will happen with their pay.
Mr. Young said about 1,700 of the agency’s 38,000 employees who work at the dozens of federal prisons have been furloughed and are in a holding pattern in terms of what happens next. Mr. Young, whose union represents federal prison employees, was in Washington, D.C., for a pre-scheduled press conference to raise awareness about the dangers officers face because of staffing issues, said the hope is Congress will take a cue from the shutdowns in the 1990s and pay employees retroactively who are off the job.
“We’re not sure this Congress will replicate the actions of the 1995 Congress,” he said. “We have to work around the most heinous criminals in our society” and now worry about when and if paychecks will arrive. “You can imagine the morale of my peers right now.”
Full story: Prison-Workers Union Worries About Back Pay for Shutdown