Shutdown 3: the Shutdownening

[RunningMn9]

the Federal Employees and their Unions

I don’t know a single federal employee that wanted a shutdown, not one. And it’s all we were talking about.

I said it earlier, but the AFGE did not sample its membership before voicing their opinion. The boots on the ground have mortgages that need to get paid. We have obligations with time components that we believe in that have to get met for our users. We have a lawless administration and a GOP that might not be inclined to follow the law which says they have to give us back pay. We have a very real fear that if a shutdown were to occur, many of our jobs won’t be here waiting for us when the shutdown ends.

It’s easy to have principles and what not when it’s not your families income being turned off for an unknown length of time.

Not a single person I talked to wanted a shutdown. No one wanted the CR either, but there is a better chance of getting paid with a bad CR.

Next time non-feds can feel free to volunteer their paychecks to the cause.

[Pyperkub]

the Federal Employees and their Unions

I don’t know a single federal employee that wanted a shutdown, not one. And it’s all we were talking about.

I said it earlier, but the AFGE did not sample its membership before voicing their opinion. The boots on the ground have mortgages that need to get paid. We have obligations with time components that we believe in that have to get met for our users. We have a lawless administration and a GOP that might not be inclined to follow the law which says they have to give us back pay. We have a very real fear that if a shutdown were to occur, many of our jobs won’t be here waiting for us when the shutdown ends.

It’s easy to have principles and what not when it’s not your families income being turned off for an unknown length of time.

Not a single person I talked to wanted a shutdown. No one wanted the CR either, but there is a better chance of getting paid with a bad CR.

Next time non-feds can feel free to volunteer their paychecks to the cause.

With direct quotes then:

Some of the federal employees that will be directly affected by a shutdown had other thoughts.

“I don’t get paid if there’s a shutdown but shutting the government down and putting up a fight is preferable to giving in,” said a source who works at the National Institutes of Health. “Chuck Schumer just gave all federal employees the bird and told us no help is coming from Congress.”

Though there are more than two million federal employees and of course opinions will vary widely, there is a deep seam of anger emanating from a number of agencies that Splinter heard from on Thursday evening. “Every single one of my colleagues supports a shutdown. Too many people are not paying attention and we need to get through to them,” said a source inside the Department of Housing and Urban Development. “We need the public to understand just how bad this is and how much worse it will get for them and the services they rely on if we don’t stop this now.” The source called back to the 2019 shutdown, the longest in US history at 35 days, and how much the public suffered for those weeks and months afterward “while we tried to crawl out from under the mess.”

“The shutdown will impact me directly. I am in favor of voting no on cloture and no on the Republican, poison pill-packed CR,” said a source inside the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission, who said they have called their senators multiple times this week to express that view. “A vote for cloture is a vote for the CR. If the CR passes, among other things, vets and the VA are decimated, and billions are thrown at [border czar] Tom Homan. None of this makes sense to me. If you don’t fight, you can’t win.”

Don't be so thick and buy the GOP line that Unions don't represent the majority of their members in this case. Sure, some could be Union reps seeking to flood the air, BUT I have seen NOTHING to indicate that there was anything but a very scant minority who didn't want Schumer and the Dems to show a spine.

[RunningMn9]

Don’t be so thick as to tell me what my goddamn union is representing because you read an article that told you what you wanted to hear.

I freely admit that I didn’t survey all 2 million federal employees. But I’ve talked to a lot more than you have. And again, this isn’t a GOP talking point. We are talking about my union, and my co-workers.

[Smoove_B]

I don't doubt your experience - though I'm sure it's highly related to the specific element you're working for. My own limited experience (albeit much, much smaller) was union leadership was constantly "taking the temperature" when things got heated for us a few years ago and so when they did speak, they truly were speaking with the voice of the overwhelming majority of members. With ~800K people I'm not entire sure how that works, but I'm guessing they must have had some confidence in their statements (i.e. that an overwhelming majority of members were in support) or they wouldn't have made them. If they didn't have member support, that would be a death sentence.

[RunningMn9]

I am starting to think no one really knows what AFGE is all about. I can understand a different reaction from folks that work at agencies that have already been savaged like NIH. Not a lot to lose there, despite the source acknowledging how horrendous the long shutdown was.

But for those that need to believe in that federal employees were all up for being your sacrificial lambs, have at it.

[Smoove_B]

?

I don't think anyone here believes it would have been good, but when the head of a labor union representing ~800K federal workers endorses a shutdown (the first time ever), that's noteworthy.

I get that you're never going to achieve 100% support with anything a union does (from it's members), but when a union president releases an official statement, that's...something.

[Pyperkub]

Don’t be so thick as to tell me what my goddamn union is representing because you read an article that told you what you wanted to hear.

I freely admit that I didn’t survey all 2 million federal employees. But I’ve talked to a lot more than you have. And again, this isn’t a GOP talking point. We are talking about my union, and my co-workers.

I did searches for ANY Federal Employees speaking out "in favor" / "supporting" the Cloture vote and keeping the Gov't open no matter what. I can find none. And it was demanded that I find examples which weren't Union mouthpieces. I'm reasonably certain that I did.

Your google-fu (ddg in my case) may be better (or better - any of your co-workers interviews - I'm fully ready to listen), but before I posted, I did check per above. And Yes, I do work in Government/Public Service as well (but at the State level, in CA, so I'm more protected for now), and I do appreciate your efforts in this thread, but I still do think it is imperative that someone other than Lawyers and Judges stand up - again almost 50% of voters also voted against this corruption of the very idea of America. And yes, you're on the front lines as well as the firing lines.

[RunningMn9]

What I’m saying is that the AFGE is barely a union, by any meaningful definition. Or at least it’s not like any other union I’ve been in. They don’t poll us on stuff. We don’t meet to discuss stuff. They rarely have any interaction with federal employees at all.

What I can relay is that no one in my neck of the woods wanted a shutdown. I can’t tell you why that was so (I assume about 95% were because they wanted to get paid).

All I was really objecting to is using “even federal employees wanted a shutdown!!” based on the AFGE, or an article referencing a few sources.

None of that truly matters, as if there was any utility in shutting down - if we weren’t dealing with this GOP and this Administration - I’d probably support shutting down to force the GOP to negotiate. But this GOP is broken.

[YellowKing]

Plurality, not majority. Trump won 49.8% of the popular vote.

If you were eligible to vote, and didn't, you essentially voted for Trump by default.

[LordMortis]

Plurality, not majority. Trump won 49.8% of the popular vote.

If you were eligible to vote, and didn't, you essentially voted for Trump by default.

If you couldn't be bothered or find a way in almost every case, I agree. It was a tacit vote for what we're getting. I can't speak for states the still don't allow mail in/early/absentee ballots. At this point, that only looks like Mississippi, Alabama, and New Hampshire according to duckduckgo.

https://www.ncsl.org/elections-and-camp ... son-voting

[pr0ner]

What I’m saying is that the AFGE is barely a union, by any meaningful definition. Or at least it’s not like any other union I’ve been in. They don’t poll us on stuff. We don’t meet to discuss stuff. They rarely have any interaction with federal employees at all.

What I can relay is that no one in my neck of the woods wanted a shutdown. I can’t tell you why that was so (I assume about 95% were because they wanted to get paid).

All I was really objecting to is using “even federal employees wanted a shutdown!!” based on the AFGE, or an article referencing a few sources.

None of that truly matters, as if there was any utility in shutting down - if we weren’t dealing with this GOP and this Administration - I’d probably support shutting down to force the GOP to negotiate. But this GOP is broken.

+1 to all of this from my own personal experience working for the government.

[Pyperkub]

What I’m saying is that the AFGE is barely a union, by any meaningful definition. Or at least it’s not like any other union I’ve been in. They don’t poll us on stuff. We don’t meet to discuss stuff. They rarely have any interaction with federal employees at all.

What I can relay is that no one in my neck of the woods wanted a shutdown. I can’t tell you why that was so (I assume about 95% were because they wanted to get paid).

All I was really objecting to is using “even federal employees wanted a shutdown!!” based on the AFGE, or an article referencing a few sources.

None of that truly matters, as if there was any utility in shutting down - if we weren’t dealing with this GOP and this Administration - I’d probably support shutting down to force the GOP to negotiate. But this GOP is broken.

Fair enough. I know that when CA was in dire budgetary straits our unions had a vote for layoffs or furloughs to help bail CA out. Most chose furloughs, but a couple of the campus unions chose layoffs instead. Of course, in this case, the desire isn't to work with unions (as CA did), it's to break them (and a huge part of that motivation is the same as most GOP motivations - make sure you can manipulate the plebes into blaming their peers who have something they covet for their problems. (and yeah, our Unions mostly suck too - in part because most of us don't care enough. Not sure how many full dues paying members we have vs. fair share folks, but I know that early on I decided upon full membership over 20 years ago, and haven't really missed the money. Funny story, when I applied for the job after getting the dot com bubble layoffs, I had zero idea that I'd be joining a union (nor that I'd have to sign an Oath of Allegiance to CA! )

Best of fortune to you and your co-workers. I haven't poked my head into the DOGE thread to see if you are being assaulted on that front, but I'd guess the answer is yes.

[RunningMn9]

I am indeed being assaulted.

Not as forcefully as some of the other agencies, but the pain is finding its way to my corner of the world, and we’ve had some rough days here. I’ve been in this desk, doing this exact job for 15 years now, but am treated like a fresh out because a different person started signing my checks 18 months ago. The Obama-era hiring freeze really jammed me on that front.