#furloughed — Public Fediverse posts

A blind woman, a ‘dream job,’ and the toll of the government shutdown – USA Today

A blind woman, a ‘dream job,’ and the toll of the government shutdown

The historic funding crisis inflicted pain on Americans across the country. Christine Grassman still hasn’t fully recovered.

By Zachary Schermele, USA TODAY

FALLS CHURCH, VA – It all started right before dragon boat practice.

Christine Grassman and her husband, Gary, had an important race coming up. In less than a week, the couple would be off to Florida for the national championships.

Much like the Grassmans, who are blind, dragon boating is often misunderstood. It’s confused with rowing, but they’re not the same. Dragon boaters use paddles and face forward; rowers use oars and face backward.

Read more: I survived breast cancer. Now I race dragon boats for Team USA. | Opinion

The lesser-known sport is also favored among people with disabilities – “paradragons,” as Christine and Gary call themselves. The two were “bit by the dragon” just after the coronavirus pandemic. Roughly four years later, Christine, at 56, is the president of their team, the “Out of Sight Dragons.”

On the morning of Oct. 11, Christine’s phone lit up with a text just as she and Gary were gearing up for one of their last workouts before nationals. Her supervisor at the U.S. Department of Education relayed a message that their team had received “reduction in force” notices. That’s Washington-speak for a layoff. She instructed Christine to check her own email.

She did. She let a “few choice phrases” slip. Her last day would be Dec. 9.

Christine was distraught. She also wasn’t alone. President Donald Trump’s administration fired more than 4,000 federal workers that weekend, just 10 days into what eventually became the longest government shutdown in U.S. history.

Read more: Education Department lays off roughly 20% of its workforce amid shutdown

In the past, such ordeals caused furloughs that, while harmful, were only temporary and ended with federal workers eventually getting paid for their forced time away from the office. That’s what happened during Trump’s first term, when the government shuttered for 35 days, setting a record at the time.

In Trump’s second term, the administration’s decision to fire its employees during another historic shutdown became one of the funding crisis’ defining challenges.

The upheaval that people like Christine endured underscored just how harmful Washington gridlock can become for many Americans, including civil servants. That tumult has in turn affected some people with disabilities, who are employed at slightly higher rates in the federal government versus the private sector. Federal law has historically required agencies to plan to meet specific hiring goals for people with disabilities.Read more: Their time at the Education Department may be over. The grieving isn’t.

Claire Stanley, director of advocacy and governmental affairs for the American Council of the Blind, said Christine wasn’t the only blind or low-vision federal employee she knew who was initially laid off during the shutdown. Many others, though not fired, spent weeks without pay.

“All of us were kind of holding our breath,” she said.

Christine spoke to USA TODAY for this story in her personal capacity as an advocate for other blind people – she is the president of the Fairfax chapter of the National Federation of the Blind of Virginia – and as a member of AFGE Local 252, the union for Education Department employees. She said her views are not representative of the agency.

From a ‘dream job’ to nightmares

On Oct. 29, four weeks into the government shutdown, Christine sat in her apartment, resting both palms flat on her dining room table. Pixie, her Norwegian forest cat, lounged on a couch nearby, his sandy brown fur complementing the dark maroon upholstery.

For a multitude of reasons, she was on a higher dose of anxiety medication. Worries about caring for her aging parents usually live more toward the back of her mind. Since she was fired, those fears had shoved their way to the front.

Her mother has Alzheimer’s; her father, a longtime firefighter, has chronic obstructive pulmonary disease. They both still live in Long Island, New York, Christine’s hometown.

Nightmares were making it harder to sleep. Her stomach hurt frequently.

Despite all those concerns, the previous 24 hours had brought some hope. On Oct. 28, a federal judge in California temporarily paused her firing, along with thousands of others. With most federal agencies still largely closed, though, she wasn’t back on the job yet.

The news offered only limited comfort. It did little to soothe her concerns about the long-term future of the federal law she has helped implement since 2019. Though housed in the Education Department, it’s not really about education at all.

Editor’s Note: Read the rest of the story, at the below link.

Continue/Read Original Article Here: A blind woman, a ‘dream job,’ and the toll of the government shutdown

#2025 #america #blindWoman #civilServants #departmentOfEducation #donaldTrump #dragonBoating #dreamJob #education #federalGovernmentShutdown #fired #furloughed #health #history #laidOff #libraries #library #libraryOfCongress #nationalFederationOfTheBlind #opinion #pixie #politics #reductionInForce #resistance #science #tollOfShutdown #trump #trumpAdministration #unitedStates #usaToday #virginia

Cuz, you know, their word is bond [/s]

Trump admin hints #furloughed workers may not be #paid after #shutdown

Agencies are sending messages indicating that workers who are on the job will be paid when the government reopens — with no mention of those on furlough, despite a 2019 #law protecting their wages.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/business/2025/11/04/shutdown-back-pay-federal-workers/

#LosAngelesCounty: All #California WIC agencies are currently operational. Government employees who are #furloughed/working without pay may qualify for WIC, if they are pregnant or have a child under age 5, and are encouraged to apply and get #WIC to help with grocery costs, even if it’s only temporary. 
 
Applying for WIC is simple and can be done 100% by phone. Apply https://www.phfewic.org/en/home/ or text “APPLY” to 91997.  

#food

A lot of news about #furloughed Federal workers in long food assistance lines. I live in a community where a lot of people depend on Feeding America and Commodities already, and have for a long time. About 1/2 of our very small town!

The bread lines have been here for a long time.

But get a few upper-middles in the line and my goodness the news #poverty

So it used to be that I go to the gym at like 7pm and it’s crowded. Now that I’m #furloughed I try going to the gym at 12pm and it’s almost equally crowded… do people not need to work 🫨🫨

3/ Federal workers face growing uncertainty as #government #shutdown continues in2 second week. Newly disclosed memo from the Office of Management and Budget #OMB claims that #furloughed #employees are not guaranteed back pay despite a 2019 law designed to ensure it. Demo suggests a legal basis for denying retroactive compensation to as many as 750,000 employees,. Meanwhile, #SocialSecurity recipients won't find out the size of next year's #checks as long as the shutdown delays #inflation #data.

2/ #Trump said #furloughed workers may or may not receive #backpay, depending on who they are, adding that “we’re going to take care of our people,” but some “don’t deserve to be taken care of” and would be handled differently. #loyalty #maga #republicans #authoritarian #purity #test #economy #paycheck #shutdown #government #dangerous #media #journalism #reporting Talk About This Please

#Trump signed into #law after the longest ever #GovernmentShutdown in 2019 #legislation to ensure #FederalWorkers receive back pay during any federal #funding lapse. But in the new memo, his #OMB [#RussVought] says #backpay must be provided by #Congress, if it chooses to do so, as part of any bill to fund the govt.

The move by the admin was widely seen as a strong-arm tactic — a way to pressure lawmakers to reopen the govt, now in the 7th day of a #shutdown.

#MafiaState #Extortion #furloughed

#Extortion

#Trump warned Tuesday of NO guaranteed BACKAY for #FederalWorkers during a government #shutdown, reversing what has been long-standing policy for some 750,000 #furloughed employees, acc/to a memo being circulated by the White House.

Trump signed into #law after the longest ever #GovernmentShutdown in 2019 #legislation to ensure federal workers receive back pay during any federal #funding lapse.

#MafiaState
https://apnews.com/article/trump-federal-workers-back-bay-shutdown-785eb776d2312d1f68f7e91961d0a93a?utm_source=onesignal&utm_medium=push&utm_campaign=2025-10-07-Government+shutdown

#Trump says #backpay for #furloughed #FederalWorkers ‘depends on who we’re talking about’

“There are some people that don’t deserve to be taken care of, & we’ll take care of them in a different way” Trump said without elaborating.

Asked an again about backpay for furloughed federal workers given that the requirement is spelled out in #law, Trump said: “I follow the law, & what the law says is correct.”

#shutdown #law #RepublicansControlAllBranchesOfTheFederalGovernment

“It is also inconsistent with the #Trump administration’s own guidance from mere days ago, which clearly & correctly states that #furloughed employees will receive retroactive #pay for the time they were out of work as quickly as possible once the #shutdown is over,” Kelley said.

#law #RepublicansControlAllBranchesOfTheFederalGovernment

A White House draft memo is threatening NO #backpay for #furloughed workers. But that would have no effect on #Trump & members of #Congress.

The #Constitution forbids a reduction in #salary for the sitting president, thus guaranteeing compensation regardless of a #shutdown, acc/to the Congressional Research Service.

Similarly, members of #Congress are not subject to #furlough & the Constitution states that members of Congress “shall receive” compensation for their services.

#law #Republicans

No pay 4 #NationalGuard or #military even when deployed....White House memo says #furloughed #federal workers aren't entitled to back #pay #salary #economy #federalgovernment #congress One goal is to destroy the #economy for #Americans who are not #billionaires and impose #martiallaw on #bluestates and #cities #portland #chicago #DC #newyork #memphis #LA based on #fake #AI and #memes and photos from #wars in other countries that are given to #trump to prove chaos in US https://www.axios.com/2025/10/07/trump-memo-furloughed-federal-workers-backpay 1/

#Trump administration is sparing #DOGE and much of the #OfficeofManagementandBudget #OMB amid a #governmentshutdown that has #furloughed tens of thousands of government workers across the country. A third of #WhiteHouse #staff will be sent home during the shutdown, according to a contingency plan posted online Thursday. https://www.politico.com/news/2025/10/02/white-house-shutdown-furlough-doge-00592532 #government #politics #maga #project2025 #constitution #democracy #economy #workforce

The US National Institutes of Health (NIH), a massive biomedical-research funder that also employs thousands of scientists at its own laboratories,
🔥is “totally broken and non-functional right now”,
according to a principal investigator at the NIH who asked for anonymity because they are not authorized to speak to the press.
“We can’t #hire people. We can’t #recruit people. We can’t #talk to people on the outside. We cannot #travel,” they say.

Other government scientists, say that they can’t afford #publication #fees or the #supplies they need to process lab samples.
At the US National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA)
— which monitors Earth’s oceans and atmosphere and provides weather forecasting services
— some scientists cannot do fieldwork because many of the contractors they have historically worked with have been #furloughed.
Meanwhile, the US Department of Government Efficiency, effectively run by billionaire Elon Musk, has been sowing #fear among federal workers with its visits to various agencies, threatening possible workforce cuts and more.
https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-025-01245-2