End this shutdown

The Old Franks Creek Bridge on Prince of Wales Island. (Photo by Eric Antrim)

By Eric Antrim

I am a proud member and the elected recording secretary for the National Federation of Federal Employees (NFFE) Local 251. My local currently represents 457 of the 635 Forest Service employees still working in Alaska, though I guess that about 50 of these have been paid not to work since last spring by the current administration under the “Deferred Resignation Program” or DRP, and they will disappear from my union now that the fiscal year has ended and they will no longer be paid by the Forest Service.

My local represents employees in the Alaska Regional Office, and both the Tongass and Chugach National Forests. In my day job, I am a licensed professional civil engineer and the Alaska Regional Structures program manager where the vast majority of my time is spent trying to make sure Forest Service road bridges are inspected as the law requires.

My local includes several dozen brothers and sisters who are GS 4s and 5s, potentially making less than $40,000 annually; that salary includes the nearly 33% federal locality pay for Alaska’s federal workers. These folks cannot afford any cuts to their pay; they certainly cannot afford to miss a paycheck. This pattern of using federal employees as collateral to achieve legislative and political goals should offend every American. Our economy already has too many career paths that require unpaid internships or the ability to weather long periods of unemployment; let us permanently remove federal service from that shameful list.

In the too many past shutdowns I’ve experienced, the line between furloughed and essential workers had a sort of logic that made sense in a least worst option sort of way. In the past, law enforcement, line officers, and critical maintenance workers had to continue working without pay while the vast majority of us were furloughed. This time, the administration is using funds that did not expire with the fiscal year to continue advancing the administration’s priorities despite the shutdown. 

The vast majority of my day job is advancing compliance with the National Bridge Inspection Standards (NBIS). This law was passed by Congress after the 1967 Silver Bridge collapse highlighted the potential dangers of insufficiently regulated public road bridges. In my job, I must try to convince Forest Supervisors with other priorities to use their limited authorities, budgets and staffs to appropriately inspect the public road bridges in their care.  

Before this shutdown, the Forest Service was already under a Plan of Corrective Action with the Federal Highway Administration (FHWA) for overdue public road bridge inspections. Basically, the Forest Service was already missing deadlines for inspecting public road bridges before this shutdown.  The Forest Service Alaska Region has about 600 public road bridges: about a third of all public road bridges in Alaska.

In this shutdown, all eight engineers that are qualified to complete these safety inspections for the Alaska Region have been furloughed, including myself. On Wednesday, I reported to my supervisor and the only worker left in the Forest Service national bridge program (who has also been furloughed) that, “…at least one inspector still [has] field work to do in these waning days of our field season in Alaska.  If this shutdown lasts…I expect we should be contacting FHWA and letting them know that [additional] inspection deadlines will be missed…“

Barring an end to the shutdown, furloughed Forest Service Alaska employees will get our last paychecks on Friday, Oct. 10, and these checks will only be about 70% of our normal pay as this shutdown started with three days left unpaid in the normal 10-day pay period. This shutdown needs to end so that our good workers can serve the American people, pay their rent, buy their groceries, and support their often very small local communities.  

I know our honorable Sen. Murkowski will negotiate to pass a budget in good faith as she always has.  Especially if you represent a part of Sen. Sullivan’s or Congressman Begich’s electorate, please contact them, identify yourself as a member of their electorate, explain how this shutdown is hurting you personally, and ask them to negotiate in good faith to end this shutdown.

• Eric Antrim is a Juneau resident.