http://giwersworld.org/mgiwer/sdown3.html
(excerpt)
After months of blaming the Republicans for shutting down the US Government twice in two months the story has now been carried in the Washington Times. With little surprise to many not only did Bill Clinton shut down the government but he had help in doing so. That help came from the AFGE union, the American Federation of Government Employees.
Yes, folks, the secret is out. The unions were part of shutting down the US Government. Those same people who were out there whining every day about how irresponsible it was to shut down the government were in fact a party to it.
But of course it must have been the fault of those young upstart Republicans in the House lead by the evil Newt Gingrich. After all, they were the ones who forced Clinton and the government employees union to conspire to shut down the government. Why they promised each other they would work together to blame Republicans for their own private agreement to shut down the government.
So after four months of lying and finger pointing the Clinton and the union we discover that they in fact planned and plotted to shut down the government. Now this might not be so bad if the AFGE represented a majority of government employees. It might not be so bad if the employees who were cold-heartedly and callously put on furlough by the union were informed of the strategy. But of course they were not.
http://blog.heritage.org/2011/02/25/government-unions-play-key-role-in-shutdown-fight/
As reported by The Washington Times in March, 1996:
President Clinton’s close ties with federal employee unions enabled him to weather two record government shutdowns and an unprecedented $80 billion raid on federal retirement funds while laying the blame on Republicans.
Internal documents from both the administration and unions reveal close coordination between the unions and Mr. Clinton in developing a strategy of confrontation with Republicans over the spending bills needed to keep the government open and prevent hundreds of thousands of government employees from being furloughed.
The unions not only took the administration’s side in the confrontation, but the largest union – the American Federation of Government Employees (AFGE) – urged Mr. Clinton to veto the bills and shut the government down for weeks rather than compromise with Republicans.
Meanwhile, the unions provided critical political cover for the administration and Democrats on Capitol Hill by waging an extensive public relations campaign designed to blame the confrontation and shutdowns entirely on the Republicans, particularly on the House’s 73 freshmen.
…
Leaders of the union, which says it represents 700,000 of the government’s 2 million employees, deduced that throwing employees out of work for a few weeks with no guarantee of pay would be better than the higher federal pension contributions and large agency cuts the GOP was planning, which might force extensive layoffs.