“A National Disgrace”: Largest Federal Worker Union Sides With GOP Plan To End Shutdown

The nation’s largest union of federal workers has called on Congress to pass a ‘clean’ short-term funding bill to immediately end the government shutdown which is now in its fourth week. 

Representing over 800,000 federal and Washington government workers, the American Federation of Government Employees argued that the shutdown was an “avoidable crisis” that harms American families and workers nationwide.

“Both political parties have made their point, and still there is no clear end in sight,” said AFGE President Everett Kelly. “It’s time to pass a clean continuing resolution and end this shutdown today. No half measures, and no gamesmanship.”

Notably, Republicans have repeatedly pushed for exactly this – a ‘clean’ continuing resolution that keeps the government open. Speaker Mike Johnson (R-LA) has urged Senate Democrats to support it with no success, while many other House Republicans support the clean CR that the House already passed which would keep funding at current levels. 

Senate Democrats have repeatedly voted down these ‘clean’ CRs. 

“When the folks who serve this country are standing in line for food banks after missing a second paycheck because of this shutdown, they aren’t looking for partisan spin,” Kelly said on Monday. “They’re looking for the wages they earned. The fact that they’re being cheated out of it is a national disgrace.“

While federal workers are guaranteed back pay once the government reopens, the Senate last week rejected a GOP-led effort to pay active-duty members of the military and certain federal workers during the shutdown – with Democrats insisting that they would back a proposal to pay all federal workers and prevent the Trump administration from firing anyone during the shutdown. 

“It’s time for our leaders to start focusing on how to solve problems for the American people, rather than on who is going to get the blame for a shutdown that Americans dislike,” said Kelly. 

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