AFGE Mobilizes Against Federal Government Shutdown, Again

(Metropolitan Washington Council, AFL-CIO)

Here we go again. With the federal government facing yet another politically inspired shutdown on midnight Sept. 30, the American Federation of Government Employees has had to mobilize against it yet again. And this time there’s an added threat, according to a recent news story: When the federal workers finally get called back they might – unlike in prior shutdowns that also weren’t their fault – not get paid for time they missed. The federal government employs 2.15 million workers nationwide, with the Postal Service employing another 590,000.  Almost all the feds would be declared “non-essential” and sent home if the government closes. And it could: Congress has approved none of the money bills needed to keep the government and its services going in the new fiscal year, which starts Oct. 1.  Its temporary money bill to fund federal agencies and programs, called a “continuing resolution,” is hung up over Tea Party insistence that lawmakers drop all money for implementing the Affordable Care Act. That’s led AFGE, the largest federal workers’ union, to mount a campaign – both in D.C. and, earlier, out in the field during the recent congressional recess – to highlight the impact of the shutdown, and prevent it.  Closure would also idle all 32,000 D.C. government workers, many represented by AFGE.  Congress must approve D.C.’s budget, and it hasn’t.  Mayor Vincent Gray (D) promptly declared every D.C. worker “essential,” in an attempt to force the feds to pay them. But the feds may not do so.  “Obstructionists in Congress are threatening to do the unthinkable: shutdown the federal government as leverage to enact their own agenda,” AFGE says in the “Shutdown Central” section of its website.
- Press Associates, Inc.