Facebook

Good job everybody got what they needed up full service United States not having the press White balance whatever so uh let me uh thank let me thank everyone uh particularly our federal employees and fellow New Jersey ins for coming to tell their story uh and let me uh I think uh rachel woman and her dedicated team here at the montclair bread company for hosting us today um is rachel here right here right next to me I saw the shirt May I didn't want to presume that you are the owner thank you for your number one fan let me uh let me thank you for what you're doing for our federal employees um rachel when her colleagues here have been giving coffee and snacks to federal employees who are fur lowed um yesterday they took uh whole bunch of donuts and coffee to R t sa uh agents who are valiantly working without pay uh and protecting us and after September eleventh I think we all understand we may have forgotten in time and become desensitized but the risk of air travel uh is still incredibly challenging and the pressures of those jobs uh and to be thinking about not being paid while you're trying to do the job right is incredibly tough uh so we wanna thank you and many other businesses in New Jersey who are giving a meals the federal employees um to financial institutions and as a member of the Senate banking Committee I want to applaud those financial institutions that are For bearing uh during this period of time for federal employees on their mortgages on their loans are not having bad credit referrals and I am going to be sending something out hopefully with a bunch of my colleagues to a large universe of of financial institutions uh that our federal employees should not be hurt uh during this period of time they should not find themselves in the midst of foreclosure that they cannot control they should not find themselves with penalties because of uh payments that are late uh and they certainly Get bad credit ratings as a result of what the federal government is in the midst of so I wanna appreciate those financial institutions that have already done this on their own initiative but there's a lot more that can be done and we're calling upon them to do it as well none of our federal workers ask for this uh but they are in the midst of it uh and the reality is these are exceptional people uh who do critical work for our state in our nation uh Very honest with you um many of them are very talented and if they chose to do something else could make a lot more money they do this in part because of their passion they do it in part because of their commitment to service like our Coast guard men and women uh who are protecting us and as a state that is a coastal state we understand the importance very vividly of the Coast guard for National security with the mega port of the East Coast support of Elizabeth in newark with the Fishing commercial fishing uh with the risk of lives uh we understand what the Coast guard is all about and to have the Coast guard which I consider a branch of our National defense and not to be paid uh it's pretty outrageous which is why I've sponsored legislation with my colleagues to make sure that in a shutdown and I hope we never have one again that Coast guard uh men and women get paid during a shutdown goes there as part of the National defense as any other part of our armed services who are Uh so it's incredibly important now this shutdown did not have to have it back in December I voted with uh all of my colleagues in the United States Senate to fund all of the remaining uh nine or so departments of the federal government that are presently unfunded it was a unanimous vote a unanimous vote and for those of you who may follow politics you know that these days unanimous votes don't take place all of the time it was a unanimous vote uh Largely based upon the president's budget request to the Congress of the United States and yet after that was done because of some right wing commentators uh the President ultimately backed off of his commitment a commitment that vice President pence made very clear to us in Congress that if we voted for this budget that included between one point 31 point six billion dollars for border security that the President would sign it Only after these commentators made the comments that they did the President ari neg on it and insist on what is an ever changing figure uh as it relates to his desired law so uh this could have ended in December should have ended in December when we unanimously passed this it can and now because once again the House of representatives has passed all the bills necessary to keep the government open these are the same exact figures that was unanimously approved by the Senate and Stopping us is that senator mcconnell the Republican leader just will not post these bills and I believe as I said on the Senate floor I think yesterday that if he posted the bills you will see a strong bipartisan vote that would send a very clear message to the President that he might very well be an override territory should you decide to be to it so we have an opportunity to get this government open and we should vote for the American people and for the nearly I thought it was five thousand but I did the math yesterday and it's close to the nearly eight thousand New Jersey federal workers Are affected uh by the shutdown so um there's no reason for the government to be close uh it should open and it should open immediately there are the votes to do so and the last point I'd like to make why must you keep even if there is a dispute over what border security looks like and there is a legitimate different point of view as to what border security looks like why must you keep all the other departments of the federal government that have nothing to do with border security close and help To this one question so at a minimum fund everything else and then if you wanna continue to dispute the question on border security that remains of the Department of homeland security and even there I would argue you extended for a period of time while you're negotiating doesn't make any sense it doesn't make any sense for National security doesn't make any sense for our economy certainly doesn't make any sense for the 800000 federal workers and several million federal Contract employees who are also affected as a result of the shutdown so with that as a premise let me uh invite uh all of our fellow new jerseyans here who wish to tell the stories not easy to tell about financial difficulties and challenges in your family I appreciate your willingness to do that and with that and whether you wanna start okay thank you senator menendez um we just wanna say I really appreciate you coming out to hear what we all have to say um I told senator When he on the Senate floor he talked about how is dipping into my savings to pay my rent and some of my bills and while I'm gonna be okay until the end of the month um you know I don't know what's gonna happen after that if the shutdown continues and I don't see a paycheck uh but I'm lucky compared to a lot of other people to have savings and I feel very lucky not um what I really wanted to highlight where some of the projects that I would normally be working on and some of my colleagues will be working on if we were working right Um one of the things that the epa does is we do a National survey of all water bodies every year so this year we're doing rivers and streams right now we wouldn't be doing any sampling but we have to train our contractors train the state people who help us um right in getting money for that uh if the state helps us they actually get money from us to help us so the state could be losing out on getting funding if this shutdown continues um You know I after hurricane Maria um so many of my colleagues went down to Puerto Rico and the virgin islands to help restore clean drinking water to the people that live there um of being one of the first agencies to get into the remote regions of Puerto Rico in the mountains to go to those remote communities and to restore drinking water clean drinking water for these people um one of the things that I would be tasked with doing is doing a post Maria Survey uh that I need to put together to implement this March but I need to secure funding right up project plan uh put together a team getting the right contractors to assist um all of this is the planning that goes into this very intense service that I need to be doing right now during the downtime during the down season uh to get ready for that purchasing supplies uh these are all things that we're not doing and we're not getting prepared for the work that needs to be done in the summer and index periods um My team also does routine uh wastewater treatment sampling uh they go to sewage treatment plants they make sure that uh just charging uh anything bad you know nutrients bacteria that kind of thing into our water bodies uh these are inspections that are being suspended right now and I know the state of New Jersey does a lot of that as well by epa assist um New Jersey in New York with these projects um another thing that people on my team have been involved with is doing testing for lead in drinking water in schools in New Jersey New York city and upstate New York um I've recently heard that there was something that uh it's what they found more lead in drinking water uh just recently during the shutdown in New Jersey schools uh that is something that our group might respond to uh so I mean these are just things that you know Also we have our state of the art laboratory in edison New Jersey um where we do sampling for Super fun sites routine sampling for Super fun sites uh the wastewater treatment plants uh we do in kind services for other projects that we might be working on um and assisting volunteer organizations who don't have the funding to do that testing themselves um you know additionally the emergency response people going to respond to hurricanes a lot of people going out to assist with the wildfires out in California and uh we're Um and also international assistance or some people in my uh group that go abroad and assist people in Africa with figuring out how to store their chemicals properly how to uh manage what they've got uh that is assistance that they might not get otherwise I mean I know it doesn't just affect New Jersey and effects the entire world in a way um oops sorry and also EPA gives out a lot of grants um we give out a lot of grants and money and funding to New Jersey dp and the Department of health to do the kinds of routine sampling and things that we've delegated to them to do um so this is Kind of work that is suspended a lot of the planning is suspended um until further notice so thank you thank you just two points safe drinking water at affected discharges into the ocean the reality is is that our tourism industry depends upon a pristine uh beaches and water quality uh and the reality the state that has the highest number unfortunately past mistakes of Super fun sites so those are just three of the many areas that only just talked about that are being affected negatively along the way who would like to go nation I think this introducing how you doing uh my name is Mike morel I'd like to thank you senator and staff for having us here I work for the uh Bureau prisons uh I'm at Fort dix New Jersey um for Texas is one of largest standalone prisons in the country we have four thousand inmates and we have 400 government staff working there were uh considered exempted employees so we have to report to work um we miss one paycheck so far and by next Wednesday that's the cutoff for our next pay period um it's Situation we already have a dangerous job as it is um and to have no money coming in um myself and my uh Co worker rod or Union members uh were part of the executive board of the Union and we've spent the last two weeks calling shelters food shelters and soup kitchens to try to get staff members and their families Fed uh myself I could maybe last another paycheck um before things get really bad um some guys can't some of the newer guys we have can't do that Um like I said I mean it's it's dangerous as it is and to that go another week without a paycheck and possibly have to make a decision whether to pay for gas or come to work uh and feed your family or come to work is dangerous for the staff that are there dangers for the inmates dangerous for the community at large and uh you know I'm I'm a Coast guard veteran um and I feel like you know we deserve better than this and uh It's it's becoming uh increasingly difficult situation and not a lot of people talk about the Bureau of prisons because they're just locked away and we don't have to worry about it but um it's it's becoming an increasingly dangerous situation how about a close God mother and when we say Coast guard mothers because the Coast guard is part of the military in the sense so they can come out and speak for themselves uh so it's great that the moms are willing to speak up for them and anyone who wants to share any stories Here we go we're all here so we are the Coast from our moms oh yes of course my name is colleen and I'm here with grace amy and katie we're here representing Coast guard mothers across America you know this is a dire situation for our Coast ease um it is just it's it's not a partisan issue this is a real life or death issue for these costs are Coast these are standing in lines at food pantries are Coast these don't have the option to not go to work actually if they up and quit their jobs they will be court martial it's it's it's catastrophic what they're up against I can speak for my son particularly he's 22 years old born and raised at the Jersey shore right now he is stationed in Louisiana on the Mississippi so he does have enough money to get through the next month with his bills but after that mom and dad are gonna have to float him and here is the obstacle Coast caesar humble very humble so the money I'll sit in the van roll account and he'll do what he has to do to get by with what he has to get by with and he'll put For himself he works with Coast that have babies he works with Coast this that you know both bread winners in the family are members of the Coast guard so you know that's a real issue um these kids still need food everyday and diapers and formula there's no money coming in for these families so whatever brings awareness to the situation that our Coast guard is up against we're ready to go and we're ready to sit with any senator we're ready to sign any petition um because Just has to come to an end sooner than later grace yeah I'm in the same situation my name is grace um my son is only 21 he doesn't have a family to feed he has helped people and take it money sitting in the demo he won't take it he's rather just stay home or go for a run instead of the gym um and he's more concerned about the ones who have families and kids and that so he is being humble right now but I I can't be And amy has a different story because her son has a baby right yeah my son is married he has two children and we had a baby last week during the shutdown and it's a difficult time for them um and I think to we're part of this ripple effect that they keep saying there's a hundred thousand people out of work but this is affecting us usually because we will be the ones to step in and pay his mortgage and to put gas in the car and of course diapers and food for the children um It's funny because they are very very proud lot I think anybody who's in the Coast guard can tell you that and I was I was in jacksonville devastation last week because of the baby being born and we had to get together a potluck meal I feel very proud but I feel they are teetering senator I feel they're teetering like this is tough Well the whole group I was with they were all dads and moms of little children and they're having a hard time um I hope there's something that can be done Ladies Gotta get Under difficult circumstances congratulations on being a grandma but the Coast guard members are as I said earlier from my perspective part of the National defense uh and they should be paid as any other member of the National defense and there is new legislation but that's not gonna help them until from now at the end of the day so there's new legislation to do exactly that so in any future shut down that they would be paid yeah that they would be paid but right now that's not gonna spotify that's not gonna satisfy not thank you senator for being here today and thank you rachel for for hosting I'm not gonna relate my personal experiences or or the current situation of my my eight mire mire I'm not gonna relate my personal experiences or the the current circumstances of my agency but I'm here today to support everyone here as well as the 800000 federal employees who are being denied the going to go to work or are going to work and being tonight to pay but I wanna make a very important point as a federal employee um I'm responsible for learning and implementing the various aspects of ethics uh I'm talking about the hatch act now as you are probably aware of the hack precludes me as a federal employee from being involved in part of partisan politics and the Grand irony is that it's nothing more than partisan politics that are impacting all of us and preventing us from making a living so I will thank you very much uh for being here and hosting this event today oh I work for the food and drug administration up meyer And me why are that's my first thing us lodge ski that's oh I have trouble swallowing it myself actually s L O B O t sky Music sorry okay uh food and drug administration critically important uh for the safety of the food that we the safety of the drugs that we take prescription drugs that we take they do incredibly important work that goes to the very health and safety of our communities and let me uh give our host an opportunity hi thank you guys all for coming today I think um you know the stuff Montclair bread company we we feel really helpless there's not much we can do um to make any significant changes in the government um the only thing we know how to do is bake so um last week we said that any employee affected by this can come in and get coffee bread for their families sandwiches um whatever we can do and then um as senator menendez pointed out we took a delivery to the ts a staff to feed them and give them a little um sweetness in there Um we'll be happy to do the same for for your staff from to come and give you guys some lunch some bread um and you know just anything that we can do to help our community and the greater community uh in a little way that we know how so thank you guys for coming and thank you all for your continued service Here from our air traffic controllers uh incredibly important all of us who fly we we know whether for business to meet family to go to a special hospital uh we take it for granted but those movements and the safety involved with them are incredibly important is an incredibly stressful job there are not enough air traffic controllers as it is so the stress grows uh and if you're trying to move airplanes thousands at newark international airport every day and you're thinking About not the screen but you're thinking about how I'm gonna pay my mortgage that doesn't add to our security I want to say thank you for the kind words senator I appreciate it my name is Ray Adams I'm with the National air traffic controllers Association newark airport and I'm just here to support the other federal employees that are not being paid at this time of the furlough order not being paid on the job so thank you for your service and I hope that we get through this shutdown quickly thank you senator for the challenges of the job uh uh I can tell you as the senator said that it is definitely um a challenging profession I've done it for a long Um we are meant to be on task at all times we were meant to be focused at all times um and these challenges that are being presented to us um these fiscal challenges are are definitely um weighing on people's minds Thank you sir uh my name is rob cope and I work for the federal Bureau prisons uh fca for dick's on the President of the local two thousand one um I wanna thank everybody for coming thank you Center for hosting this uh thank you um I think uh with the Coast guard and federal Bureau of prisons air traffic controllers anybody that's an accepted employee uh my heart goes out to anybody that's followed I mean nobody should have to go through this and uh you know uh worry about how you're gonna pay your bills when you have a job when you have to go to work you have no way of paying your bills um there's an inherent risk involved in a lot of the work that we do uh the Coast guard air traffic controllers uh working in the federal or the prison system uh when you go to work you should be Focused on the task at hand uh not how you gonna pay your bills uh put your kids through College and some instances uh buy diapers or formula it's it's it's really is kind of disgraceful um uh before uh I've been in the prison system for 22 years uh this is the worst I've ever seen it uh we went through huge staffing cuts last year uh we lost almost a hundred employees just an Fbi for dicks so that's exasperated by this um we have guys that we get mandated working 16 hour shifts when other people can't make it to work um I think People are coming to work because we depend upon each other do the right thing and were loyal to each other and that's why we go to work and perform the functions that we do um but at some point one to three paychecks later uh that that's gonna run out at some point you need to make a choice between um am I gonna pay for gas to go to for work to work uh or to an agency that's not paying me or uh money to stay home and feed my children um I've never we're public servants I've never seen it before where we have to go to the public to assist us I shouldn't have to seek public assistance I shouldn't have to make phone calls uh to To feed my staff I shouldn't have to uh uh look for donations of diapers and baby formula for guys that should be receiving a paycheck uh it's a crisis it's it's um it's horrible really it's uh there's no other way to describe it and I think you serve for here in our plate My name is christine gallagher and I work for the internal revenue service and I'm part of the large business group and what I would say from the irs standpoint we are the largest revenue generating body for the government and so the role that we play like us or not it's very important and um so from that standpoint you know we're we're not part of the my two Co workers here as well were not part of the accepted work that has been brought back um we are primarily tax auditors but we ensure compliance and we ensure that everyone pays their And so from that standpoint you know we take pride in the work we do we play a very valuable role and we want to go back to work so we thank you for keeping our story relevant you know keeping us in the spotlight because my concern is this has been dragging on this is we are no longer gonna be the headline and we have to be the headline until this gets solved so thank you kristie I'm cheryl as nest they work for the internal revenue service in large business and international and I work for Program the compliance assurance process so right now if I were working I would be working on preparing the training materials our program was revised to make it more relevant and more acceptable and more accountable so a lot of the materials have to be revised and I'm coordinating the training but I can't do that I'm not allowed to open my computer I would get fired if I opened up my computer and worked on it so it's very very frustrating for me I find shutdown Demeaning and upsetting and they're telling me that they don't value my skills I'm a cpa I've been nba degree I have a Masters in Spanish and they're telling me I have no value so that's how I feel it is for me personally we have savings when we're living off of savings not everybody is that our age bracket we've already sent our kids to College and we've been saving for retirement so we rarely our retirement savings that's not what it was supposed to be for but I have I talked to my friends last night I either some Messages and spoke to a few if I talk to patty patty is a Secretary in edison and petty says if if they force you to go back for to work how will she pay for gasoline and she's she's married she's better off than a lot of others Secretary she has savings but what will happen to se novia maybe some mafia doesn't have savings what about the clerks how can people who work in the service centers how can they afford to get there they are the lowest paid employees are not the professionals so I Let everyone I talked to some New Jersey these are the phone numbers that I have on my cell phone so John s is from farmers branch Texas he's worried about the paycheck to paycheck employees as I am how will they manage aces in Atlanta you know his retirement paperwork didn't go through he was scheduled to retire so that's why I wanted to call me to go through a so he said no he's worried about statute problems we have statutes of limitation and then how will people pursue their work and you'll be amended They won't be process you can't just keep people refunds there are rules they can't get a refund if it's more than a certain amount of money um also there's delays in hiring we're supposed to be bringing on new people they can't be brought in and they have other training that those people are working on my friend lisa lisa in San Diego was supposed to be uh teaching in the new hire training but she won't be able to do that um and she's also living off the savings so you know it's uh that's that's not what Um supposed to happen for us she's worried about the effect on the economy um and also that the fact on federal workers at the low end of the pay scale I asked Dream a from New Jersey she's also worried about the innocent employees who are suffering for no reason and Howard as a manager he said how long can this continue this furlough he's upset about it and that hank is another manager uh from app inside New Jersey uh he said it's just very disrespectful to federal employees so Hello my name is myron analysis I'm an irs worker my wife cheryl business so we both were getting pay checks from the federal government and neither of us are getting them now one thing that concerned me is that people are speaking on my behalf as a federal worker without even knowing what I thought and speaking on my behalf as a veteran because I was in the us Navy when I first got out of College because it was during the Vietnam war so uh I find it Frustrating other people are saying what what they feel I think without even asking me uh my big concern right now is uh health insurance uh it's very important that will be covered by health insurance normally we pay it by having withholding from their paychecks and nothing's being withheld when we lose out on the health insurance and have to pay much higher prices for medical help and we've had significant medical bills in the uh recent fears and reach the past that I can add to what you're already said Well let me uh thank you all for sharing stories because uh as I said it's never easy to talk about your financial or other challenges uh I've done this with health care where people talked about their health challenges and that's incredibly personal and this is personal to and I think it gives everybody a taste uh of what you do that affects all of our lives everyday in a very poignant and powerful way and It gives it a real face to a number and that number becomes desensitizing but it's real people with real challenges with real families with real consequences so I think our collective uh call is very simple as three words open the government open the government we can negotiate anything else but open the government uh you can't have a negotiation with hostages we don't believe Hostage negotiations and right now federal employees are hostages unnecessarily Hills in that context simply because of a determination over one issue one issue and one issue alone so all of these federal departments should be open there's unanimous agreement on what is the funding for them that's not in question the only question is the president's desire to have originally one six billion then it went to five billion now it's at five point seven billion it's constantly a moving target to build a Wall that is deeply in question us to does that the best way to have border security we believe in border security we've voted for money sometimes in Washington people start throwing billions around like it's funny money it's real money to the National debt and to the taxpayers of the nation one point six billion dollars is a lot of money and especially when you haven't spent the one billion already That was given for some of these purposes so um I appreciate all of you coming together and to talk about what you do on behalf of our nation on behalf of our state and as new jerseyans to talk about your lives and how they're affected and again thank you to our host and we hope you can keep baking but not to give just a federal employees at some point to make money so uh so so thank you all very much I'm gonna excuse our And then I'm gonna take answers questions from the press because they're gonna wanna talk about this and other things and uh I don't want to necessarily capture especially as federal employes into that line of uh of uh cross fire so to speak so thank you all for coming I appreciate Okay still using this okay