{"id":14888,"date":"2025-10-27T13:16:38","date_gmt":"2025-10-27T13:16:38","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/bluelightnews.com\/category\/politics\/largest-federal-workers-union-calls-for-an-immediate-end-to-the-shutdown\/"},"modified":"2025-10-27T13:16:38","modified_gmt":"2025-10-27T13:16:38","slug":"largest-federal-workers-union-calls-for-an-immediate-end-to-the-shutdown","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/bluelightnews.com\/category\/politics\/largest-federal-workers-union-calls-for-an-immediate-end-to-the-shutdown\/","title":{"rendered":"Largest federal workers\u2019 union calls for an immediate end to the shutdown"},"content":{"rendered":"
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The nation\u2019s largest union of federal workers is calling on Congress to pass a short-term funding bill and immediately end the government shutdown as it heads into its fourth week.<\/p>\n

In a strong condemnation of both parties<\/a> on Monday, the American Federation of Government Employees argued the shutdown is an \u201cavoidable crisis\u201d harming American families and workers across the nation.<\/p>\n

\u201cBoth political parties have made their point, and still there is no clear end in sight,\u201d Everett Kelley, president of the AFGE, wrote. \u201cIt\u2019s time to pass a clean continuing resolution and end this shutdown today. No half measures, and no gamesmanship.\u201d<\/p>\n

The AFGE represents more than 800,000 federal and Washington government workers and has filed several lawsuits against the Trump administration, including over mass layoffs<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Kelly on Monday emphasized that federal workers will be unpaid and face layoffs.<\/p>\n

\u201cWhen the folks who serve this country are standing in line for food banks after missing a second paycheck because of this shutdown, they aren\u2019t looking for partisan spin,\u201d he said. \u201cThey\u2019re looking for the wages they earned. The fact that they\u2019re being cheated out of it is a national disgrace.\u201d<\/p>\n

Though federal workers are guaranteed back pay once the government does reopen, the Senate last week rejected a Republican-led effort<\/a> to pay active-duty members of the military and certain federal workers during the shutdown. Democrats have backed a proposal that would pay all federal workers during the shutdown and bar the Trump administration from firing workers during the shutdown.<\/p>\n

Kelly said workers now are forced to work without pay \u2014 something he added is “unacceptable.”<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s 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,\u201d Kelly said.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The nation\u2019s largest union of federal workers is calling on Congress to pass a short-term funding bill and immediately end the government shutdown as it heads into its fourth week. In a strong condemnation of both parties on Monday, the American Federation of Government Employees argued the shutdown is an \u201cavoidable crisis\u201d harming American families […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-14888","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-congress"],"amp_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/bluelightnews.com\/category\/politics\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/14888","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/bluelightnews.com\/category\/politics\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/bluelightnews.com\/category\/politics\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bluelightnews.com\/category\/politics\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bluelightnews.com\/category\/politics\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=14888"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/bluelightnews.com\/category\/politics\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/14888\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/bluelightnews.com\/category\/politics\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=14888"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bluelightnews.com\/category\/politics\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=14888"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bluelightnews.com\/category\/politics\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=14888"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}