Posted on 12/11/2018 3:57:35 PM PST by mdittmar
AFGE says it hopes the president works with Congressional leadership to ensure federal workers don’t ‘get left out in the cold this holiday season’
WASHINGTON – This morning Democratic leadership met with President Trump to discuss the final spending bill of the year and hopefully avoid a partial government shutdown at midnight on December 22. The shutdown would be the third in 2018, disrupting work and pay for hundreds of thousands of federal workers in the middle of the holiday season.
In response to today’s meeting, and the uncertainty surrounding the potential partial shutdown in 11 days, American Federation of Government Employees National President J. David Cox Sr. issued the following statement:
“Every time we face a government shutdown, the paychecks our members and their families rely on suddenly become a political football. The most basic job of Congress is to fund federal agencies. Passing short, successive continuing resolutions (CRs) is an abdication of that responsibility.
“As the union that represents 700,000 federal and D.C. government workers, we call on Congress and the administration to fund the government for the remainder of the fiscal year.
“Our members take home an average of around $500 each week. Any interruption in their pay will have a devastating impact on them, their families, and their communities.
“TSA officers, Border Patrol agents, correctional officers, and other federal law enforcement officers will continue to put their lives on the line whether they receive their paychecks or not, and this prospect alone should motivate Congress and the administration to do their work.
“Our members are asking how they are supposed to pay for rent, food, and gas if they are required to work without a paycheck. The holiday season makes these inquiries especially heart-wrenching.
“Congress and the President should not hold agency funding hostage to controversial policies unrelated to the budget. We call upon them to pass a full-year funding bill that includes the modest pay adjustment for federal employees already agreed to by the Senate.”
*sniff sniff*
They shouldn’t have voted Democrat.
“federal workers” is an oxymoron. The last thing they do is work. More like federal parasites.
“Our members take home an average of around $500 each week.”
Right. $2K a month is $24K a year, multiply x 1.3 to get their gross, these employees make $31K a year pre-tax? That’s a tad over the poverty level.
They never lose any money. They are paid retroactively and many enjoy the paid vacation.
Read: “Socialist Union Members Use Stranglehold on Govt Service to Bully Americans into Paying More for their International Union that Spits in the Face of Uncle Sam”.
They’ll be replaced with illegal aliens anyway some day soon.
They get a vacation and when they return to work get back pay - they lose nothing.
They get a paid vacation. Don’t expect any sympathy from me.
Fed “unions” were made by executive order...unmake them! These bums should have never been “unionized”.
Maybe they can all go to work for General Motors.
I hope PDJT shuts it down and, unlike Obama, shows in full detail, how the government is always open and never shuts down and how much wasteful extra people there are...
Fire every freaking hillary-voting apparatchik in our fed govt AND BAN UNIONS.
#DRAIN THE FARGING SWAMP ALREADY!!! Jeeez
I’m hearing very faint violin music.
“The most basic job of Congress is to fund federal agencies.”
No it is not. That statement can be roughly translated as: “the most basic job of Congress is to federal emplouyees”; which it is not.
The basic fiduciary - financial - responsibility of Congress is not to federal employees; it is as stewards over what the TAXPAYERS are paying, and that is FOR what is best for the taxpayers, whether it works out the best for federal employees or not.
If Congress does not think that federal spending is doing right by the taxpayers, it has zero obligation to “protect” federal workers at an inappropriate expense to the taxpayers. It matters not that there can be disagreement in Congress about just how to do that. That fiduciary responsibility as good stewards for the taxpayers money, not wages for federal employees, is what is “most basic” when it comes to Congress money decisions.
Budget negotiations are not about protecting federal agencies or federal workers. They are a CONSEQUENCE, not a purpose, of deciding what is the best use of taxpayers money - as THOSE expenditures are ALL subject to debate and compromise and NONE are “guaranteed”.
If the “basic” job of Congres was protecting federal agencies and their employees, Congress would be REQUIRED to support all current expenses for them, without compromise. There is no such requirement in law or the Constitution and the Constitution is the BASIC law of the Federal Government.
It always turns into paid vacation. It’s not like they’ll lose any money.
$500 a week? Their members are in the wrong union. I’m sure the numbers are much higher at the second largest federal workers union.
Federal “workers”
More like Federal PARASITES.
This is just so much BS.
The employees furloughed in every ‘shut down’ I recall were made whole when FedGov got back into action.
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