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Government reopens; contractors in Hampton Roads not guaranteed pay, work

A government subcontractor for the past 30 years who lives in Chesapeake said she's not sure when she'll go back to work.

CHESAPEAKE, Va. — Thousands of federal employees went back to work Monday after the longest government shutdown in U.S. history. 

The government reopened for at least 3 weeks while a solution to the stalemate is reached regarding funding for a border wall with Mexico.

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Tamara Shipp has been a government subcontractor for the last 30 years.

“I do legal transcriptions so most of the work I do is for the Security Exchange Commission. I work with the division of enforcement and they do investigative interviews and I transcribe them,” said Shipp.

Because of the more than one-month government shutdown Shipp could not work.

“Because the SEC was one of the agencies affected, they are not in the office doing their job. Therefore, I’m not getting any work from them, and I can’t do my job. So, if don’t work, I don’t get paid, and for contractors like me there’s no back pay,” said Shipp.  

Many federal workers headed back to their jobs, but Shipp said she wasn't sure when she’d be able to start working again and how long she'd be working once she was back.

“It’s my presumption that the people with the SEC are back in the office and ramped up again, but there will be a little bit of lag time. If they are able to schedule some interviews this week, then I’ll get those to work on next week. We are still very much up in the air because there’s the threat to shut it down again in three weeks,” said Shipp.

Shipp and her family cut back and were dipping into their emergency funds to make ends meet. She said she’ll begin looking at going on the job hunt again, just years before she thought she’d retire.

“We are saving for retirement and the plans that we are making are for five or six years down the road. I did not expect to have to be going out there and trying to sell myself in the job market,” said Shipp.

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