Today, thousands of federal workers’ jobs are on the line, due to the government shutdown.
We urge you to continue to stand with our brothers and sisters in AFGE, and to keep reading our weekly updates so that we can continue to inform our community of these attacks giving everyone the opportunity to join us in speaking out. Together, we will ensure that all working people are heard!
The longer the federal government shutdown continues, the longer working families pay the price for the Trump administration’s political games that are costing everyday Americans their jobs, their health care, access to vital government services, and their paychecks. Today, the jobs of as many as 600,000 federal workers are in jeopardy. Many workers will be furloughed, including an estimated 89% of the Environmental Protection Agency, 87% in the Department of Education, and 76% in the Department of Labor, according to the NYTimes.
In New Jersey alone, an estimated 22,684 federal workers will go without paychecks, and 341,834 are at risk of losing their health care.
When asked if federal workers would receive backpay, Trump suggested that the administration would deny back pay to furloughed federal workers, despite signing a measure into law known as the Government Employee Fair Treatment Act that ensures back pay during a government shutdown.
A draft memo from the Trump administration implied that only the workers who are deemed essential may be automatically entitled to pay once the stalemate ends. For furloughed workers, the White House memo stated that Congress still must explicitly approve funding for any payments to occur.
Responding to a reporter who asked if these workers would lose back pay, Trump said, “depends on who you’re talking about,” adding that there were “some people that really don’t deserve to be taken care of, and we’ll take care of them in a different way.”
“On behalf of the 820,000 federal employees AFGE represents, we are demanding that the Trump administration abide by the law and pay its workers. Federal employees are patriotic Americans, who did not ask to be dragged in the middle of this political fight,” said AFGE National President Everett Kelley in a statement. “Over the past nine months, the Trump administration has been determined on traumatizing the federal workers who provide vital services to the American people. The threat to not pay federal employees is cruel, anti-worker, and illegal, and it wouldn’t be tolerated in any other workplace.”
It’s time to stop the Trump shutdown and fix the health care crisis. The administration needs to get to work, not play political games. Our jobs and health care are on the line. Our message to the Trump administration is clear: quit threatening federal workers’ jobs, fund the government, fix the mounting health care crisis and put working people first.
We urge you to make a call or send an email to Leader Thune and Speaker Johnson.
Call Leader Thune and Speaker Johnson at: 844-896-5059.
Click here to send an email.
To download and share the graphic above on social media, click here.