Employees at the Anniston Army Depot could start the first of 14 days of unpaid leave in June.

According to the Anniston Star – Lt Colonel Elizabeth Robbins said workers at the depot are still scheduled for up to 14 furlough days, despite comments Secretary of Defense Chuck Hagel made last week that the reduction of unpaid leave for military civilian employees was still on the table.

The 14 days of furloughs for civilian military workers was announced the last week of March.

More than 2,800 civilian workers at the depot could be furloughed.

The Department of Defense is instituting the furloughs due to the federal budget cutbacks known as sequestration – which began March 1st. Civilian employees had been facing up to 22 furlough days until Congress passed a spending bill in late March, that gave the Defense Department more money.

The furloughs are expected to save about $2.5 billion.

Shrene Funderberg – the president of the American Federation of Government Employees Local 1945, which represents depot workers – said her organization is still fighting to get the furloughs reduced further, adding that the depot should have already been exempt from the furloughs, since they are already in the position of not having enough people to do what needs to be done.

The depot released its 371 temporary and short-term employees from their contracts at the end of March due to the drawdown from the Afghanistan war.

(Anniston Star/www.annistonstar.com)