Workers Respond to Government Shutdown by Defending Jobs, Public Services and Wages
The shutdown of the U.S. government has entered its third week. The House of Representatives is not even in session, with House leader Mike Johnson saying, "there is nothing to negotiate." The Senate remains unable to pass a "continuing resolution" to fund the government at least through November, failing daily to do so since October 1. President Trump continues to act in a manner which maintains the shutdown, calling it an "unprecedented opportunity" for restructuring the government and mass firings. Trump has been meeting with the head of the Office of Management and Budget Russ Vought, of PROJECT 2025 Fame."
On October 10, Vought attempted to fire 4,100 federal workers, already on lay off. He said on October 15, that more than 10,000 will be fired. "We want to be very aggressive where we can be in shuttering the bureaucracy -- not just the funding," Vought said. "We now have an opportunity to do that." That same day, a federal judge issued a temporary restraining order that bars the presidency from moving ahead with any firings. The judge was responding to a lawsuit by the American Federation of Government Employees (AFGE) and the American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees (AFSCME), saying the firings were illegal. It remains to be seen if Trump will defy the ruling.
In addition to firings, Trump has persisted in saying that the almost 700,000 federal workers now laid off will not get paid for the days lost during the shutdown, which has been the case in the past. As AFGE President Everett Kelley put it, "They're calling this a shutdown, but in actuality, this is an employee lockout. These employees are being locked out of their jobs." Responding to Trump's threat not to pay workers when the shutdown ends, potentially including those working and not getting paid, Kelley said, "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." He added, "The threat to not pay federal employees is cruel, anti-worker, and illegal."
AFGE continues to organize local protests, providing signs and
leaflets for federal workers across the country who are standing
up to defend the public services they provide and denounce the
mass firings. They demand Stop the Shutdown! Fund the
Government! Stand, Unite, Fight for Workers' Rights!
Workers are speaking in their own name, denouncing Congress for
its failure to fund social services and all the vital programs
needed by the people. In addition to local actions, AFGE
mobilized their members to participate en masse in the
more than 2,600 actions held across all 50 states and
Washington, DC in the second No Kings Day! on October 18.
The union has also developed a Mutual Aid Network, including food banks and other resources, to support workers while they are laid off. They also provide unemployment information, which the government makes difficult to secure when the situation is only temporary.
Sick-Ins by Airport Workers
The threat of withholding wages also involves all those considered essential who are working, but without pay. This includes air traffic controllers, those providing warnings and emergency relief for hurricanes, floods, wildfires and more. Many of these departments have already cut staff and the additional shortages being imposed are dangerous for the workers and the public.
Air traffic controllers are among those calling in sick to protest insufficient staffing and in support of fellow federal workers. The sick-ins combined with staff cuts meant the Federal Aviation Administration reported staffing shortages at airports in Nashville, Boston, Dallas, Chicago, and Philadelphia, and at its air traffic control centers in Atlanta, Houston and the Dallas-Fort Worth area, October 6-7. Staff shortages were reported for Washington, DC, Denver, Newark, and Orlando airports on October 8. Actions continue and Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy admitted that staffing shortages among the country's 13,000 air traffic controllers meant 53 per cent of flights are being delayed, compared to five per cent normally.
Nick Daniels, president of the National Air Traffic Controllers Association, said even before the shutdown the national airspace system was critically understaffed and relied on outdated equipment that tends to fail. The shutdown makes the situation even worse. Controllers are demanding that at least 3,000 more people be hired to provide the staffing and safety needed.
Similarly, the 50,000 Transportation Security Administration (TSA) screeners are working without pay during the shutdown. To protest the untenable position they are put in, with bills to pay and no paycheck, many are also organizing sick-ins. Fifty of 250 TSA officers -- roughly one in five -- who were scheduled to work in the region that includes seven mid-Atlantic states and the District of Columbia called in sick October 6 and similar numbers did October 7. New York's John F. Kennedy International Airport saw 400 TSA officers collectively have a sick-in, October 4-5. These actions continue.
Air traffic controllers and TSA workers are concerned about the safety of passengers and crews and their own well-being given insufficient staffing and the stress and insecurity of not knowing if they will be paid or fired or both. "Childcare does not take IOUs. Gasoline does not take IOUs. Your house payments do not take IOUs. And sometimes it becomes very difficult to maintain focus on the mission when you're trying to figure out how you're going to get to and from work," said one angry TSA worker in Texas.
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Federal Environmental
Protection Agency workers oppose layoffs Most government departments are being impacted, some more than others. For example, the Environmental Protection Agency, already contending with staffing cuts, laid off 13,432 workers, about 90 per cent of its workforce. Only 1,734 people are still on the job. The Department of Education laid off 87 per cent of its staff. In March, half of its workers had already been fired. It is one of the departments where more mass firings are likely to occur. More than half of the workforce at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention have been laid off -- 8,700 people. Already 1,500 are being threatened with being fired.
The Department of Labor is another one where massive layoffs have occurred, which could still become mass firings. More than 9,700 of the agency's 12,916 employees are on layoff. Only 3,141 remain at work, with most limited to emergency functions. As is the case with other departments, most of their enforcement, oversight, and support work has been suspended, including that for occupational health and safety inspections at workplaces, mine safety and more. As a union representative emphasized, "No wage theft investigations, no safety inspections, no checks on retirement plans, and no protections for working families. This shutdown is an attack on workers and hurts everybody."
While it is clear to everyone across the country that Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) and other federal policing agencies are fully staffed and spending millions on illegal raids, and hundreds of millions more are being spent for National Guard deployments and detention camps, the entire workforce at the Office of Detention Oversight at ICE has been laid off. They are the only ones to do inspections of detention camps and are required by law to inspect every location once a year.
ICE already has a record 61,000 people in detention camps. The elimination of oversight is taking place when hunger strikes and lawsuits are condemning GEO and CoreCivic, private prison monopolies running the camps, for their horrendous conditions. These include overcrowding, lack of medical care, inedible food, and the use of solitary confinement. The two companies are responsible for 90 per cent of people detained. Even with the shutdown, dozens of new contracts are being signed with ICE, including one for CoreCivic to hold 2,160 people at a former prison in Oklahoma.
Federal workers are being supported by the public and there is widespread anger with the dysfunctional Congress. Workers everywhere are rejecting getting embroiled in the false blaming game of the politicians and instead working to strengthen and broaden the organized resistance, including planning for the nationwide actions October 18 and the many in Chicago, DC, Los Angeles, Memphis and Portland demanding ICE and Troops Out of Our Cities!
(Photos: AFGE 704, NATCA)
This article was published in
Volume 55
Number 44 - October 21, 2025
Article Link:
https://cpcml.ca/Tmlm2025/Articles/TS55442.HTM
Website: www.cpcml.ca Email: editor@cpcml.ca