Federal Workers Angry Over Looming Pay Cut

Federal employees, jolted by the increasing likelihood they will receive only partial pay next week, lashed out at their agencies and lawmakers Wednesday, and many worried they would not be able to make mortgage and car payments on time.

Doris Johnson, a 29-year Labor Department employee at home in Greenbelt, Md., on furlough, called the prospect of partial pay “ridiculous” and faulted Congress for the budget impasse. “They are getting a full paycheck. They are playing games with people. I just got my husband out of the hospital on Friday. He’s not working, and I’ve got to take care of the mortgage. What’s going to be left to live on?”

The shutdown also cast a pall over the holiday season outside Washington. “We’re desperately hurting,” said Dave Lemp, a contract employee at NASA’s Lewis Research Center in Cleveland. About 2,200 contract workers there were placed on unpaid leave until the shutdown ends. “It’s not a good thing for the economy or the nation. It’s a hard thing.”

The shutdown, by far the government’s longest as it heads toward the two-week mark, has slowed or halted activities at nine Cabinet departments and 38 agencies, commissions and boards. About 280,000 federal employees are furloughed and 480,000 have been kept at work at the unfunded departments to provide emergency or critical services.

The increased worry about half-full paychecks began Tuesday, when administration officials said it seemed virtually certain the 760,000 employees caught in the shutdown would start the new year with half a paycheck.

The warning appeared to catch a number of employees by surprise, particularly at the Justice Department, which is operating without a fiscal 1996 appropriation but has kept almost all FBI agents, Drug Enforcement Administration investigators and federal prison guards on duty.

“They are furious about this,” said Victor Oboyski, president of the 11,000-member Federal Law Enforcement Officers Assn. “We have a lot of agents that have their mortgages taken right out of their paychecks. That one week of pay isn’t going to cut it. . . .”