U.S. President Donald Trump points a finger during an announcement about lowering U.S. drug prices, at the White House in Washington, D.C., U.S., October 10, 2025. REUTERS/Kent Nishimura
As the partial shutdown of the United States' federal government drags on, thousands of federal workers are either furloughed or — if their jobs are considered essential — are still required to report to work but without pay.
Yet according to National Public Radio (NPR) reporter Andrea Hsu, some federal workers are finding a silver lining behind a dark cloud: They feel like they finally have a chance to speak out about what they bring to the table.
One of them is Monica Gorman, who works for the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA).
Hsu told NPR, "I'm feeling energized, honestly. It's felt for so long to me like federal workers have just been screaming into a void…. To see people in Congress taking a harder line, I feel like we're finally being heard now in a way that we weren't before."
Similarly, Sarah Kobrin — a 22-year employee of the National Cancer Institute, told NPR, "They have made us much, much stronger."
The shutdown follows months of mass layoffs of federal workers in a variety of agencies, from the Internal Revenue Service (IRS) to the U.S. Social Security Administration (SSA) to the National Weather Service (NWS). After President Donald Trump returned to the White House, the Trump Administration carried out a campaign of mass layoffs with the help of the Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE).
Federal workers fearing being laid off have been reluctant to speak to the media, and many who agreed to be interviewed only spoke on condition of anonymity.
Hsu notes that "fear of retaliation by the Trump Administration has left many federal employees reluctant to speak on the record with NPR."
But Gorman told NPR, "I'm done being afraid of them…. They say the best organizer is a bad boss, and we all have the same bad boss."
Read Monica Hsu's full NPR article at this link.