Republicans received an unexpected ally on Monday as they hope to pressure Democrats to vote on a stopgap spending bill to end the government shutdown: the labor union representing federal workers.
The president of the Association of Federal Government Employees released a statement on Monday calling on Congress to pass a clean continuing resolution to reopen the government as the shutdown enters its fourth week.
“The path forward for Congress is clear: Reopen the government immediately under a clean continuing resolution that allows continued debate on larger issues,” Everett Kelley said in a statement. “Ensure back pay for every single employee who has served or been forced to stay home through no fault of their own.”
The move gave Republicans a boost as they have argued the government needs to reopen immediately while Democrats want to include an extension of the Covid-era enhanced tax credits for the Affordable Care Act’s health insurance marketplace.
“I think they're exactly right, and I think the Democrats should stop hurting government employees,” Sen. Ted Cruz (R-Texas) told The Independent. “They need to listen to the unions, and that's not a sentence I say very often.”
The move put Democrats on the defense, as for the past few weeks, they have said federal workers have already been battered by President Donald Trump’s Department of Government Efficiency and then by Office of Management and Budget Director Russell Vought. Trump even posted an AI video calling Vought the “Grim Reaper” set to Blue Öyster Cult’s song "(Don't Fear) The Reaper."
But Sen. Susan Collins (R-Maine), the chairwoman of the Senate Appropriations Committee, praised the federal workers’ union statement.
“The union is absolutely right that the longer this goes on, the more unfair difficult it is for federal employees, some of whom are working without pay, others of whom have been and still others are at risk of losing their jobs due to OMB,” she told The Independent.
This week poses a crucial week amid the shutdown. The Trump administration said that it would not disburse payments for the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP), formerly known as food stamps. In addition, open enrollment for the Affordable Care Act’s health insurance marketplace begins this week.
Sen. Lisa Murkowski (R-Alaska) said federal workers have one message for Washington: “End the shutdown. End the shutdown. We want to get paid.”
Murkowski said the two concurrent cliffs of food for poor people and people seeing their premiums spike could force Washington to begin negotiations.
“And so if there's something that is the precipitating factor, I think it's not that the unions have changed, maybe, but that you have this date that is so pivotal,” she told The Independent.
The announcement from AFGE also threw Democrats for a loop.
“I think we can still deal with health care and SNAP, but the federal shutdown’s a real challenge,” Sen. Mark Warner (D-Va.) told The Independent. But he added that “federal employees, I feel like, they feel like they’ve been abused.”
Sen. Elissa Slotkin (D-Mich.) said she did not think the AFGE’s statement would weaken their leverage.
“I was a federal government employee, so I certainly understand that they're bearing the brunt of this, and they're doing what they think is best to advocate for federal government employees,” Slotkin, a former CIA officer, told The Independent.
Democrats have long touted their support for labor unions. But plenty of federal workers have gone without pay since the shutdown began. Last week, Democrats blocked legislation to pay excepted workers–workers who have to keep working despite a shutdown–by Republicans, arguing it allows Trump to pick and choose which federal workers can be paid.
Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.), who has long sold himself as a champion of workers’ rights, said he understood why the union made its statement.
“Obviously, everybody wants to see the government reopen,” he told The Independent. But he also faulted House Speaker Mike Johnson for keeping the House out of session since September.
“And maybe it might be a good idea for the Speaker of the House to end its, what is it? Five week vacation, for his members, and bring them back here and begin serious negotiations if he wants 60 votes here in the in the Senate,” he said.
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