‘Oh yeah, they’re scared’: Federal employee union local chief says civilian workers are afraid to speak out
The head of the union that represents civilian employees at Fort Wainwright and Fort Greely says at least a dozen workers have resigned, retired, been furloughed or laid off as part of the Trump administration’s effort to sharply reduce the federal workforce.
Bill Ward is president of the American Federation of Government Employees Local 1834. And he says some civil service workers have agreed to resign or retire under the Deferred Resignation Program that offers to pay them without showing up for work until the end of September.
“There’s a lot of employees looking, and we've had several who have taken or signed the buyout offers,” he said. “There's a lot of folks looking at resigning or retiring.”
Local 1834 represents more than 2,500 civilian employees at the two Army installations and all commissary and health care workers statewide.
Ward says he’s not sure how many civilian workers at Wainwright and Greely have been notified that they must leave the federal workforce or face layoffs. Spokespersons for the two installations and referred inquiries to higher headquarters or other agencies, like the Office of Personnel Management.
One Fort Greely employee said Wednesday that the workforce was advised about the Deferred Resignation Program several days ago. He indicated that he turned down the offer, but didn’t want to talk much about it.
Ward says that many civilian workers believe that if they speak out, they’ll be fired and barred from working for the feds.
“Oh yeah, they're scared,” he said Tuesday. “Yeah. Tremendously scared.”
Contractor employee: 'It's a very stressful situation'
And so are federal contractor employees who’ve been swept up in the administration’s drive to shrink the federal workforce. One contractor who worked from home for another agency said she was furloughed about a week after President Trump was inaugurated.
“Everybody at our organization got really worried,” she said, “because there are quite a lot of us who are remote workers.
“… We were told if you were at the office, to go home,” she added. “If you were working remotely or working from home, to log out and to not access your government computer or your email account until further notice. We were all told it would be furlough, without pay.”
The contractor employee asked not to be identified, both because she’s afraid of the backlash that might bring and because she’d like to rejoin the federal workforce someday.
“It's a very stressful situation,” she said, “and a lot of employees are very worried. A lot of people have families to support and bills to pay.”
The contractor worker says she’s applying for other jobs and looked into applying for unemployment compensation. She’s stressed-out over losing her job -- and because of what’s happening to the federal government.
“I'm deeply concerned about the future of our agency and about large parts of the rest of the government,” she said. “I mean … it's really terrifying the way things are being torn apart.”
Ward, the union president, says a lot of civilian employees are telling him the same thing. And he says he’s been communicating with Sen. Lisa Murkowski’s office about the situation.
“I think Lisa is gonna do anything she can to help us,” he said.
Ward is a military veteran, like a lot of other civilian workers, and he says they take their job seriously.
“Every single one of us raised our hand and swore an oath to our country and to our Constitution," he said. "… And I serve my fellow countrymen. I serve the military.
"And so irregardless of what's going on back in D.C. with a couple of billionaires, I'm going to continue to do my job. And everyone, from sweeping the floor to making sure our aircraft are safe in the air to the ones that save lives in the hospitals and everywhere else -- they all feel the same way. We're going to continue to do our job the best that we can with what we have to work with.”
Correction: This story has been revised to clarify that the contractor employee has not yet been laid off.
