Oakdale prison community facing issues due to shutdown

Today, January 17, marks the 27th day of the United States Government shutdown and Oakdale is being affected in several ways. Over 800,000 employees nationwide are not being paid for the services provided to the government through their jobs, approximately 400 of those jobs exist at the correctional center in Oakdale.
Not only federal employees at The Federal Correction Complex and The Immigration Custom Enforcement and Court are feeling the sting of missing the first paycheck of the year, which should have been received Friday, January 11, but local businesses, creditors, sales tax and others will see a drop in revenue in the coming weeks.
“It’s really going to hurt Oakdale tremendously,” said Oakdale Mayor Gene Paul. “I hope they quit playing politics and people get together and settle this. People can’t go a month without a paycheck.
“They know we need border wall security, but that’s not the issue. What I understand is they don’t like Trump,” Paul said.
Kinder Mayor Wayland LaFargue said they were discussing the issue with their city attorney to see what the city could do to assist those working for the federal government as far as paying local utilities.
This matter hits close to home for both mayors. Paul’s wife works for immigration and LaFargue’s son works for the prison.
Paul said constituents in Oakdale need to let city hall know what’s going on. He said, “Talk to us.”
At the Federal Correction Complex, federal officers are on the job for now, according to Corey Trammel, president of AFGE (American Federation of Government Employees) Local 3957, and Jeremy Droddy, treasurer of Local 1007. All staff considered essential at the prison are required to work regardless of the timeliness of their paycheck.
“You can’t close a federal prison down. We have to come to work and keep the federal prison running,” Trammel said. “These guys have been through this before, but this is the longest shutdown in history. Management is already seeing a drop in officer attendance.”
Discussions already have occurred on officers having no income to pay for gas for transportation and child care. These are just two of the major factors expected to effect attendance. Other stress factors for officers will include how to pay mortgages, rent, utilities, child support and all the day-to-day costs of living.
AFGE staff members have been sharing information through Facebook, email and face-to-face to help staff deal with finance issues by offering them letters to help with creditors. They are also checking on the mental and emotional status of employees since law enforcement/correctional officers have one of the highest suicide rates in all workforce.
AFGE also has asked Warden Rodney Meyers to provide cots for employees to sleep on and altered work schedules to keep transportation costs down to and from work for officers. At press time, the cots had been approved and will be set up in the training center for those who wish to use them. However, altered work schedules have not been addressed, and Trammel expressed in his opinion, this would ease officers’ financial burdens during this time.
Trammel said they have been contacted by Food Banks and organizations like Cuddle Me, which would help with diapers and formula, and that information has been shared with staff.
“They are telling us from the President on down, to seek secondary employment,” Trammel said. “However all secondary jobs have to be approved by the warden.”
Employees normally work eight-hour days, but most are seeing 16-hours due to the rate of officers taking furloughs. (Furlough is an unpaid day off.) The longer this shutdown continues, the more frustrated federal employees will be.
In some cases, those employees are married couples. A handful of couples in Oakdale are both employed by the federal government and are seeing no income at this time. This is true for Droddy, treasurer of Local 1007. He said they would be okay for awhile but not that long.
Leaders quote the president’s remarks from January 4th, that he is prepared for the shutdown to last months or even years. He also made the comment that federal correctional officers are some of the lowest paid federal employees. And what is outrageous according to AFGE leaders is that federal prison inmates are still getting paid for jobs they do inside the prisons while federal correctional officers continue to go with no paychecks.
Other information supplied included one-third of federal correctional officers have served our country through the military, so our veterans are being shown yet another disservice.
The government shutdown will ultimately cost the government more due to overtime costs and backpay, according to information Trammel had on the shutdown. He said, “Congress is holding the American people hostage over an amount than is less than one percent of the annual budget.”
“When the government reopens, we hope all employees will be paid backpay regardless if they were furlough or worked,” according to Trammel. “The overtime costs will increase budgets because many will have taken on hours of others who did not report to work. Everyone will be paid, furlough or not, when the government reopens.”