For the Partnership for Public Service, recognizing public servants’ extraordinary work as part of the 2024 Samuel J. Heyman Service to America Medals, known better as the “Sammies,” is coming at a particularly critical time.

Not only will the Partnership’s awards ceremony take place on the 23rd anniversary of 9/11, but the program honoring career civil servants also comes amid rising questions about what the future holds for the federal workforce. But through it all, Partnership President and CEO Max Stier said the continuation of a nonpartisan civil service remains “vital.”

“During a time when federal workers face more scrutiny and damaging rhetoric than ever, these talented individuals have embodied the highest standards of public service in America,” Stier said Monday in a press statement announcing the winners of the 2024 Sammies. “With the coming change in presidential administrations, our nonpartisan, merit-based civil service will, as always, provide the critical continuity of government that is so vital for our democracy.”

The 2024 awards season marks the 23rd anniversary of the Sammies, often dubbed the “Oscars” of federal service. This year’s Sammies winners are federal employees working across a multitude of agencies and fields, all of which the Partnership described as “critical.”

The work of this year’s awardees spans from “removing tons of hazardous materials from the Maui wildfires, developing new AI tools for patent and trademark systems, and creating the world’s first tornado-resistant building codes,” the Partnership wrote Monday in its press statement. “This year’s honorees also pioneered policies to improve government services and the customer experience, revolutionized bee disease diagnosis and treatment, and helped prevent fatalities from roof falls and underground mining disasters.”

Notably, the Partnership for Public Service is honoring Nancy Alcantara, Shannon Rebolledo and Justin Uphold of the Labor Department with the 2024 Federal Employee of the Year award — the top honor of the Sammies program.

After the three Labor Department feds first discovered children working in hazardous conditions at a meatpacking plant in Grand Island, Nebraska, their investigation eventually uncovered widespread child labor violations at several other facilities in Arkansas, Colorado, Indiana, Kansas, Minnesota, Tennessee and Texas.

The team’s work ultimately found violations involving 102 children, ages 13 to 17, who had been cleaning dangerous equipment and slaughterhouse floors during overnight shifts, using hazardous chemicals and hot water, some of whom sustained injuries from chemical burns.

“The kids that we found, they could have been my kids, they could have been your kids — they were just kids in this country,” Rebolledo said in an interview on The Federal Drive. “We really brought attention to a problem that most people didn’t realize was so prevalent. When most people think of child labor, they picture that black-and-white picture of a kid in a coal mine 100 years ago. This isn’t a 100-year-old problem. This is a now problem.”

The investigation eventually led to a historic $1.5 million fine against Packers Sanitation Services, a major food sanitation service provider. As a result of the work of Alcantara, Rebolledo and Uphold, the Labor Department ultimately launched a nationwide initiative to root out child labor violations and implemented “sweeping changes” in how it enforces child labor laws, the Partnership for Public Service said.

“Something that this award does, and this nomination does, is it shows if our work matters here at this department, that the people we’re helping matter and we’re helping them be able to understand their rights and know that they are worth being safe in their work environment,” Uphold said during The Federal Drive interview. “They should not be subjected to the conditions, as children, to work in such a dangerous and hazardous environment.”

Out of more than 500 nominations, the Partnership announced 25 finalists for this year’s Sammies program in May during Public Service Recognition Week. Along with the three winners of the Federal Employee of the Year award, the winners for the remaining categories for the 2024 Sammies are:

• Christopher Mark, Mine Safety and Health Administration — Paul A. Volcker Career Achievement Medal
• Jerry Ma, U.S. Patent and Trademark Office — Emerging Leaders Medal
• Amira Boland, former Office of Management and Budget — Management Excellence Medal
• Marc Levitan and Long Phan, National Institute of Standards and Technology — Science, Technology and Environment Medal
• Steve Calanog, Tara Fitzgerald and Pete Guria, Environmental Protection Agency — Safety, Security and International Affairs Medal
• Yan Ping (Judy) Chen and Jay D. Evans, Department of Agriculture — People’s Choice Award

The Partnership for Public Service will honor all of this year’s Sammies winners and finalists Wednesday evening during an awards ceremony held at the Kennedy Center in Washington, D.C.

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