‘I don’t know how I’m going to feed my kids’: Shutdown hits federal contractors hard

By Matt Egan, CNN

New York (CNN) — Audrey Murray is losing sleep over the government shutdown that could soon derail her paychecks.

Murray, 65, has worked as a cleaner at the Smithsonian Museum of American History for nearly three decades. Now she is among the hundreds of thousands of federal government contractors whose livelihoods are being threatened by the political dysfunction in Washington, DC.

“It’s so sad that they think they can play with people’s lives,” Murray told CNN while fighting back tears. “Stop this. Stop messing with people. We have families who depend on us.”

Unlike federal employees, contractors typically don’t receive backpay when the government reopens from a shutdown. Low-wage service workers, including cleaners, janitors, security guards, cafeteria workers and other staffers who keep buildings operating, are often out of luck.

The Smithsonian Institution, which includes all the Smithsonian museums, plans to go dark after Saturday if the government shutdown continues beyond then, according to its website.

If that happens, Murray worries how she will provide for her three children and grandchildren in Capitol Heights, Maryland.

“I don’t know how I’m going to feed my kids or pay my mortgage. It’s not about me. I don’t care if I don’t eat, but I want them to,” said Murray. “I pay my bills and do everything I’m supposed to. But I’m worried and I can’t sleep.”

Why contractors aren’t paid

Government shutdowns can create hardships for Americans who rely on government services and for those who work in the federal government.

During a shutdown, federal employees are not paid — even if they are deemed essential — and are required to report to work. Essential workers include those at the Transportation Security Administration who screen passengers and baggage at airports.

However, those federal workers get backpay once the lapse in funding is over. But there is no such obligation for government contract workers, according to legal experts.

“Not only are they not guaranteed backpay, they rarely — if ever — get it,” said Judy Conti, government affairs director at the National Employment Law Project (NELP), a nonprofit advocating for an inclusive economy and worker rights.

The problem is that contractors are paid by the federal government for the services they provide, whether that’s security work, meal prep or cleaning office buildings. But if there are no services because buildings are shut down, the contractor doesn’t get paid.

This is especially painful for lower-wage workers, who often live paycheck-to-paycheck and may have minimal savings for emergencies. Union officials say this problem has an even greater impact on women and people of color, who make up a bigger proportion of the low-wage workforce and often have fewer financial resources to bridge the gap.

Tiara Roberts, a single mom in Maryland with three children, is concerned about how she will get by if her contract job providing security at a Smithsonian museum is derailed by the shutdown.

“This affects me to the extreme. It really triggers me,” said Roberts, whose children include a six-month-old and a 3-year-old. “I have a lot on my plate already, and this is just an added-on stressor.”

Roberts hopes to make ends meet by working as an Uber driver or an Instacart delivery worker.

Filing for unemployment

Nichole Atallah, a partner who specializes in labor and government contracting at the law firm PilieroMazza, said the general rule is that contract workers aren’t made whole after a shutdown.

“If you’re a cafeteria worker or a janitor, you can’t make up that time. It’s lost,” Atallah told CNN in a phone interview.

Although employers can decide to pay contract workers despite the shutdown, experts say that’s rare when it comes to hourly workers in blue-collar jobs.

Atallah said contract employers will sometimes work to compensate workers in highly skilled positions who are hurt by the shutdown.

“If I have a more highly skilled person working on contract, I’m more likely to bend over backwards to make sure someone doesn’t find another job than I am with a janitor,” Atallah said.

Although there is often a waiting period before someone can apply for unemployment benefits, Atallah urged impacted contract workers who get furloughed to immediately apply because some unemployment systems in the DC area are already strained by federal layoffs.

“They should apply for unemployment as soon as possible so they’re first in line if the shutdown lasts,” Atallah said.

Shutdown blame game

The Service Employees International Union (SEIU) estimates that more than half a million employees of federal contractors were without work and not provided backpay during the record-long shutdown of 2018-2019.

A campaign to get backpay for contract workers failed to make headway during that shutdown, which lasted 35 days.

Last week, Democratic Sen. Tina Smith of Minnesota and Rep. Ayanna Pressley of Massachusetts introduced legislation to provide backpay for federal workers who face furloughs and lose income during a shutdown. The bill, called the Fair Pay for Federal Contractors Act, would provide backpay for contract workers, including low-wage service workers for an amount equal to their weekly compensation up to $1,442.

“This is about fairness—contract workers and their families should not miss a paycheck because of a government shutdown they did nothing to cause,” Smith said in a statement about the legislation.

Jamie Contreras, executive vice president at 32BJ SEIU, which represents about 2,400 federally contracted security officers, office cleaners and food service workers, urged the Trump administration and Republicans to avoid “punishing working-class families” in this shutdown.

“For decades, 32BJ’s federally contracted janitors and security officers have done the hard and important work to keep key federal government buildings safe and clean,” Contreras said. “Many are single mothers and the sole providers for their families who were forced to rely on public assistance to survive and fell further behind on bills during previous shutdowns.”

White House spokesman Kush Desai declined to say whether the Trump administration supports paying federal contract workers who get furloughed during the shutdown.

“American contract workers are another casualty of the Democrats’ needless and destructive government shutdown,” Desai said in a statement to CNN.

‘Not fair’

Maria Madonado, a single mother of three who lives in New Carrolton, Maryland, told CNN through a translator that her work as a contracted cleaner at the IRS headquarters is being impacted by the shutdown. She fears she won’t be able to pay her bills.

She said her supervisor told her and her colleagues not to come into work last Thursday due to the shutdown. Then the cleaners were asked to return on Friday because the building was a mess.

Madonado’s status this week is unclear.

Madonado, who is from El Salvador and has lived in the United States for 26 years, said it’s “not fair” that she won’t get paid because “it’s not that we’re not working because we don’t want to.”

Due to the Trump administration’s immigration crackdown, Madonado — who holds a green card — is reluctant to go on unemployment or apply for other aid out of fear it will hurt her chances of eventually becoming a US citizen.

“It’s really strange because you think you’re more secure in a government job than in a regular job,” she said. “And today I realized that’s not the case.”

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