T.J. Gamble, a federal correctional officer, started a more than 10-hour road trip to Washington this weekend fresh off a grueling work schedule: He’d worked 16-hour shifts for 16 consecutive days.
Gamble, who works at a federal prison in a rural part of southeastern Michigan, was headed to Capitol Hill as part of a larger advocacy blitz for higher pay for employees within the federal Bureau of Prisons, a push to help address the agency’s staffing woes.
“I’d gotten off of work from my last 16-hour shift, went home and slept for a couple hours, and then we got in the car and we came out here,” he said in the cafeteria of the Longworth House Office Building between meetings with congressional offices Monday.
