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The
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Sept. 5, 2015
To a Senior Scribe about Labor Day
Susan D. Olling
To the editor,
I started reading the Senior Scribe’s piece “Labor Day?!”. I
stopped after the sentences “No Federal employees work it. How is
that?”. A bit of education seems to be in order.
Contrary to the assertion of the Senior Scribe, there will be federal employees working on Labor Day.
Have you visited a national park on Labor Day? The rangers you
see at national parks are National Park Service (NPS) employees.
The National Park Service is a unit of the United States Department of
Interior. The U.S. Forest Service, a unit of the United States
Department of Agriculture, has forest rangers in national
forests. The Army Corps of Engineers has park rangers. All
these rangers are federal employees. Unless their work schedule
has them with Monday off as part of their weekend, or they take the day
off, these rangers will be working Labor Day. Oh yes, some
rangers are fortunate to have a “normal” weekend, but most do
not. For trivia buffs, the only day the National Mall and
Memorial Parks are closed is December 25. It’s the only unit in
the NPS system that closes just one day per year.
Medical staffs at Veterans Administration hospitals will be working on
Labor Day. Those physicians, nurses, and others are federal
employees. Federal firefighters (including those fighting the
forest fires in the west), federal law enforcement, and military
(obviously) will be working on Labor Day. Air traffic controllers
and TSA agents are also federal employees and working on Labor
Day. Lock tenders on the navigable rivers (the Ohio River, for
example) are also federal employees and will be working on Labor
Day..
This list seems to refute the Scribe’s assertion about no federal employees working on Labor Day.
I would be curious to know where the Scribe got her information to make such a blanket statement.
Susan D. Olling
Gaithersburg, MD
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