Deal spares federal workers before Christmas

Jesus Soriano, president of the American Federation of Government Employees Local 3403 representing the National Science Foundation and several other agencies, poses for a photo in Chevy Chase, Md., after an interview on Friday, Dec. 20, 2024. (AP Photo/Brian Witte)

ANNAPOLIS, Md. — Johnny Zuagar said he tried to hide his worries about a potential government shutdown from his three boys as he weighed how much to spend on Christmas presents.

“I’ve got to keep a poker face,” Zuagar, a statistician at the U.S. Census Bureau, said when thinking about his boys, ages 14, 1, 2, and 6. “You’re just trying to take that worry off of your family.”

Like thousands of federal workers, Zuagar had been navigating the holidays with the spirit of the season overtaken by an air of gloom and uncertainty.

The efforts in Congress to reach an agreement on keeping the government open had cast a cloud over the holidays for many federal workers facing the prospect of furloughs in the days before Christmas. But Congress passed a three-month spending bill early Saturday, just after the midnight deadline, and President Joe Biden signed it into law hours later. There was no shutdown.

Many federal workers were already anxious about the possibility of future workforce reductions under the incoming Trump administration.

Zuagar, who is president of the American Federation of Government Employees Local 2782, which represents federal workers at the census, has lived through shutdowns before.

This time, uncertainty came as Trump and his allies have promised sweeping cuts in the federal workforce.

“We really don’t know anymore,” Zuagar said during a telephone interview Friday. “Again, the rhetoric out there is that federal employees are the problem.”

The contentiousness of the current debate has left him wondering: “Are we the scapegoat for every ill and grievance in America?”

He said federal workers are also worried about what will happen after Trump takes office.

“They’re fearful of what’s to come, like this is the beginning of something, or they don’t care about us,” Zuagar said.

Jesus Soriano, president of the AFGE Local 3403 representing workers at the National Science Foundation and several other agencies, also said the budget clash felt different this time around.

“Americans need to decide what type of services the government should provide, whether we are talking about national security, the safety of our borders, the safety of our food, Social Security or others,” Soriano said in an interview in Chevy Chase, Maryland.