SSA Workers Upset to be Working for Free During Shutdown

Woodlawn's U.S. Social Security Administration employees are learning today who will stay on the job starting Monday and who will not because of the impending federal government shutdown, said union representative Witold Skwierczynski.

Skwierczynski is local president for the American Federation of Government Employees' National Council of Social Security Field Operators, in Woodlawn, where SSA employs more than 11,000 people.

While employees are glad that they'll be able to continue providing claims and other services for citizens, "They will be working for nothing, and that is upsetting," Skwieczynski said.

"Down the road, they will probably get paid. But ... we won't get paid until Congress agrees on the budget," he said, which could mean financial hardship for employees who live paycheck-to-paycheck.

So the shutdown means no pay for thousands in the area.

"Woodlawn (SSA) will be pretty much shut down," Skwieczynski said, except for the 4,000 employees who work with the public in Security West, where disability claims are processed.

But across the street from Security West, at the Social Security Administration complex, the 7,000 employees who work there—in operations "who don't deal directly with the public"—will not be working come Monday, unless Congress reaches a budget agreement this weekend, Skwieczynski said.

Employees have been given an 800 phone number to call to check if there are any changes this weekend, he said.

Since October, Congress has been trying to come to an agreement about how to spend federal dollars. Time runs out on the current budget at midnight. And, without a budget for fiscal year, government will shut down.

Nationwide, it's the same story for the SSA's 70,000 employees, Skwieczynski said. Among them, "44,980 will be working. Those are the people who do claims work."

The shutdown aside, already SSA employees are enduring a two-year hiring freeze, and possible changes to their healthcare benefits, Skwieczynski said. All overtime has been cut. And all these budget cuts come during a time when claims are increasing because of the economy and the aging baby-boomer generation.

Throughout the SSA complex yesterday, there was "a feeling of dread," said an SSA employee who asked not to be identified. "You know, a sick-to-your-stomach feeling."

The Owings Mills resident declined to give her name because she feared that speaking to the media might negatively affect her employment at SSA.

But she said she's personally prepared for a shutdown.

Because she has been through a shutdown before—in 1996—she's been saving up money since October when the federal government didn't pass the new fiscal year budget.

However, she is concerned for fellow employees who haven't been able to prepare. "There's a lot of people that are afraid," she said. Their biggest fear? "Not being able to pay their mortgage."

Meanwhile, U.S. Postal Service employees and services are not affected by a shutdown because "the postal service does not receive any tax dollars," said Yvette Singh, Baltimore District communications coordinator.

"It doesn't affect any of the post offices at all," Singh said. "We will continue working, the retail units will be open ... just as they would be every day."

The postal service is its own separate entity from the government, and relies on the sale of postage, its products and services, in order to operate, Singh said.

For information on military pay, visit http://patch.com/A-g3Hk.